The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-04-17

uOW?f some one SAID: mat Is scar
let line" 60" said some one else, that
must be the house that was to be spared.
Don't touch it," That line was thick
enough, and long enough, AMI conspicu-
GUS enough to save Rahab, her father,
her mother, her brothers and her sisters
the entire family. Have our households
as good protection? You have bolts on
the front door and on the back,
and fastenings to the window and
perhaps burglar alarms, and perhaps
an especial Waterman blowing his
whistle at midnight before your dwell
ing; but all that can not protect your
household. Is there on our houses the
sign OF Saviour's sacrifice and mercy?
Is there q scarlet line in the window?
Have your children been consecrated to
Christ? Have you been washed in the
blood of the atonement? In what room
do you have family payers? Show me
where it is you are accustomed to kneel.
The sky is black with the coming
deluge. Is your family inside or out
side of the ark? 1t is sad thing for
man to reject Christ; but to lie down in
the night of sin, across the path to
Heaven, so that his family come up and
trip over him-thGt is terrific.
1t is sad thing for a mother to re ect
Christ; but to gather her family around
her, and then to take them by the hand
and lead them out into the paths of
worldliness, away from God and Heaven,
alas! alas! There may be geranium and
cactuS in +bot for,i11 =, w; =, T. ,,- o,5 -.
holstery lowering over it, and childish
faces looking out of it, but there is no
scarlet thread stretched across it. Al
though that house may seem to be on
the best street in all the town Or CITY,
it is really on the edge of marsh
across which sweep most poisonous
malarias, and it has a sandy foundation,
and its splendor will come down, and
great will be the fall of it. A home
without God! A prayerless father! An
undeyoted mother! Awful awful! Is
that you? Will you keep on, my broth
er, on the wrong road, and take your
loved ones with you? Time is so short
that we can not waste any of it on apol-
ogies, or indirections, or circumlo-
cutions. You owe to your children, 0.
father, @, mother, more than food, more
than clothing, more than shelter-you
owe them the example of a prayer
full, eonseerated, pronounced, out-and-
out Christian life. You can afford to
keep it away from them.
Now. as l stand here, you do not see
any hands outstretched toward me, and
yet there are hands on my brow and
hands on both my shoulders. They are
hands of parental benediction. 1t is
quite good many years ago now since
we folded those hands as they began
the last sleep on the banks of the
Raritan in the village cemetery; but
those hands are stretched out toward
me to-day, and they are just as gentle as
when sat on her knee at Ave years of
age. And / shall never shake off those
hands. l do not want to- They
have helped me so much a thousand
times already, and I do not expect
to have trouble or trial between
this and my grave where those hands
will not help me. 1t was not a very
splendid home, as the world calls it:
but we had family Bible there well
worn by tender peru sal; and there was
a family altar there, where we knelt
morning and night; and there was a
holy Sabbath there; and stretched in a
straight line or hung in loops or fes-
toonS there was a scarlet line in the
window. Oh, the tender, precious,
blessed memory of Christian home! Is
that the impression you are making
upon your children? When you are dead
and it will not be long before you are
when you are dead will your child
say:
''If there ever was a good Christian
father, mine was one. If there ever
was q good Christian mother, mine was
ONE
Still further: we want this scarlet
line of the text drawn across the win
dow of our prospects. I see Rahab and
her father, and her mother, and her
brothers and sisters looking out over
Jericho, the city of palm trees, and
across the river, and over at the army
invading. and then up to the mountains
and the sky. Mind you, Glis house was
on the wall, and L suppose the prospect
from the window must have been very
wide. Beside that, do not think that |
the scarlet line at all interfered with |
the view of the landscape. The assur-
ance it gave of safety must have added |
to the beauty of the country. To-day,
my friends, we sit in the window of |
earthly prospects, and we look off to- |
wards the hills of Heaven and the land |
scape of etorral beauty God has
opened the window for us, and we look
out. We now only get a dim outline of |
the inhabitants. We now only here and |
there catch note of the exquisite har-
mony.
But blessed be God for this scarlet
line in the window. That tells me that
the blood of Christ bought that home
for my so'sl. and shall go there when |
my wor't Is done. And as I put my hand |
On thsi scarlet line, every thing in the
future nrightens. My eyesight gets /
better, and the robes of the victors are
nore lustrous, and our loved ones who
vent away some time ago-they do not
stand any more with their backs to us,
put their faces are this way and their
Toices drop through this Sabbath air
saying with all tenderness and sweet
less: f'COmei Comet Coo,ai. An5 AZ, |