The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-12-25


intrument which, taken from the head
of the leader of the flock of sheep, is
perforated and prepared to be fingered
by the musical performer, and blown
upon when pressed to the lips. As in
another sermon have fully described
that scene, l will only say that every
day for seven days the ministers of re-
| Hgion went round the city of Jericho
| blowing upon those rams horns, and on
the seventh day. without the roll of
war-chariot, or the stroke of a catapult
or the swing of a ballista, crash! crash!
crash! went the walls Of that magnificent
capital
On the evening of December we
walked amid the brick and mortar of
that shattered city, and / said to my
self: All this done by poor music blest
of God, for it was not harp or flute,
or clapping cymbal, or an organ
played, at the sound of which the city
surrendered to destruction, but rude
instrument making rude music blest OF
God, to the demolition of that wicked
place which had for centuries defed the
Almighty. And l said, if all this was by
TINS blessing of God on poor music, what
mightier things could be done by the
blessing of God on good music, skillful
music, Gospel music. If all the good
| that has already been done by music
were subtracted from the world, be-
lieve three-fourths of its religion would
be gone. The lu1labys of mothers
which keep sounding on, though the
lips that sang them forty years ago be-
came ashes, the old hymns in log-cabin
churches, and country meeting-houses,
and psalms IN Rouse's version in Scotch
kinks, the anthem in English cathedrals,
the roll of organs that will mover let
| Handel or Haydn or Beethoven die, the
thrumb of harps, the sweep of the bow
across bass viols, the song of Sabbath
| schools storming the heavens, the
doXology of great assemblag es-why
thousand Jerichos of sin have by them
all been brought down.
Now on this plain of Jericho the sun
setting, making the mountains look
| like balustrades and battlements of
amber and maroon and gold; and the
moon, just above the crest, seems to be
window of Heaven through which i'm
mortals might be looking down upon
! the scene. Three Arabs, as watchmen,
| sit beside the campfire at the door of
my tent, their low conversation in a
strange language all night long, a
| soothing rather than interruption. l
had dream that night never to be
forgotten, that dream amid the COM
Ioko e
eur returned. and 1 saw the city as it
was when Mark Antony gave it
| to Cleopatra, and Herod bought it frcm
her. And l heard the hoofs of its
swift steeds, and the rumbling of its
chariots, and the shouts of excited
| spectators in its amphitheater.
And there was white marble amid
green groves of palm and balsam; cold
stone warmed with sculptured foliage;
hard pillars cut into soft lace; Iliads
and Odysseys in granite, basalt jet as
the night mounted by carbuncle fam
ing as the morning; upholstery dyed as
though dipped in the blood of battle
| fields; robes encrusted with diamonds;
mosaics white as sea-foam flashed on by
auroras; gayeties which the sun saw by
day, rivaled by revels the moon saw by
night; blasphemy built against the sky;
ceilings stellar as the midnight heavens;
grandeurs turreted, archiovolted and in.
tercolumnar; wickedness so appalling
that established vocabulary fails, and
we must make an adjective and call it
Herodic.
oh 4, oo;A
seemed to me white with cotton such
as Thenius describes as once growing
there, and sweet with sugar cane, and
luscious with orange and figs and poine-
granates, and redolent with such flora
as can only grow whore tropical sun
kisses the earth. Aud the hour came
back to me when in the midst of all
that splendor Herod died, COM
manding his sister Salome i'm
mediately after his death to Sc
cure the assassination of all the
chief Jews whom he had brought
to the city, and shut up in circus for
| that purpose, and the news came to the
audience in the theater as some one
took the stage and announced to the
excited multitude: "Herod is dead!
Herod is dead!' Then, in my dream,
all the pomp of Jericho vanished, and
gloom was added to gloom, and desola-
ton to desolation, and woe to woe,
until, perhaps, the ripping waters of
the Fountain of Elisha suggesting it.
as sounds will sometimes give direc.
ton to a dream thought that the
waters of Christ's salvation and
the fountains "open for sin and
uncleanliness, were rolling through
that plain and rolling across that conti-
nent, and rolling round the earth, lntil
on either side of their banks al the
thorns became flowers, and all the
deserts gardens, and all the novels
mansions, and all the funerals bridal
professions, and the blood of war was
turned into dahlias, and all the groans
became anthems, and Dante's Inferno"
became Dante's "Divina Commedia,"
and Paradise Losk" was submerged by
Paradise Regained," and tears be-
came crystals, and cruel swords came
out of foundries glistening pillow.
shares, and, in my dream, at the blast
/ of 4rnYooat tho Y,roc FRO Ead r,alIo of