The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-09-25

| 2ccompliskes just as much.
What dull spot upon which to stand
and have such glorious vision! Had
Patmos been some tropical island, ar
bored with the 1uxuriance of perpetual
summer and drowsy with breath of Gin
namon and cassia, and tesselated with
| long aisles of geranium and cactus, we
would not have been surprised at the
splendor of the vision. But the last
you would go to If you wanted to find
beautiful visions would be the Island
of Patmos. Yet it is around such
gloomy spots that God makes the most
wonderful revelations. 1t was looking
through the awful shadows of a prison
that John Bunyan saw the gate of the
celestial city. God there divided the
light from the darkness. In
that gloomy abode, on scraps
of old paper picked up about
his room, the grand drama was written.
1t was while John Calvin was refugee
from bloody persecution, and was hid
in house at Angouleme, that he con-
ceived the idea of writing his immor-
tai Institutes" Jacob had many a
time seen the sun breaking through the
mists and kindling them into shafts
and pillars of fiery splendor that might
well have been ladder for the angels
to tread on, but the famous ladder
which he saw scared through gloomy
night over the wilderness. The night
the grandest heavenly revelations.
From the barren, surf-beaten rock of
Patmos, John looked up and saw that a
door was opened in Heaven.
Again, the announcement of such an
opened entrance suggests the truth that
God is looking down upon the earth
and observant of all occurrences. If we
would gain wide prospect, we climb
up into a tower or mountain. The
higher up we are the broader the land
scape we behold. Yet our most COM
prehensive view is limited to only a
few leagues-here river and there a
lake and yonder mountain peak. But
what must be the glory of the earth in
the eye of Him who. from the door OF
Heaven, beholds at one glance all
mountains and lakes and prairies and
oceans, lands bespangled with tropical
gorgeousness and arctic regions white
with everlasting SHOWS, Lebanon ma
jestic with cedars and American wilds
solemn with unbroken forests of pine,
African deserts of glistening sand and
wildernesses of water unbroken by
ships keel, continents covered with
harvests of wheat and rice and maize,
the glory of every zone. the whole
world of mountains and seas and for
ests and islands taken in single glance
of their great Creator.
But ought net prayer to be made up
of golden words if it is to enter such a
splendid door and live beside seraphim
and archangel? Ought not every phrase
be rounded into perfection, ought not
the language be musical and classic,
and poetic, and rhetorical No, the
most illiterate cutlery, the unjointed
petition, the clumsy phrase, the sem
tence breaking into grammatical
blunders, an unworded groan is
just as effected if it be the
utterance of the souls want.
A heart all covered up with garlands of
thought would be no attraction to God,
but heart, broken and contrite, thai is
the acceptable sacrifice. 81 know that
my Redeemer liveth," rising up in the
mighty harmony of musical academy
may overpower our ear and heart, but
it will not reach the ear of God like the
broken-voiced hymn on some sufferer
amid rags and desolation looking up
trustfully to Saviour's compassion,
singing amid tears and pangs: 81 know
that my my Redeemer liveth.
suppose that there was more rhet-
ORIG and classic elegance in the prayers
of the Pharisee than of the publican,
but you know which was successful.
You may kneel with complete elegance
on some soft cushion at an altar of
alabaster, and utter prayer of Miltonic
sublimity, but neither your graceful
posture nor the roll of your blank verse
will attract heavenly attention, while
over some dark celler in which a
Christian pauper is PROSTATE in the
straw, angels bend from their thrones
and cry one to another: Behold, he
prays!' Through this open door of
Heaven what long procession of
prayers is continually passing! What
thanksgivingsl What confessions? What
intercessions! What beseechings! ''And
behold door was opened in Heaven. !"
Again: The door of Heaven is OPEN
ed to allow US the opportunity of look
ing in. Christ when He came from
Heaven to Bethlehem left it open, and
no one since has dared to shut it. Mat.
thew threw it still wider open when he
spoke of the glory to be revealed, and
John in Revelation actually points us
to the harps and the waters, and the
crowns, and the thrones. There are pro-
found mysteries about that blessed place
that We can notsolve. But look through
this wide open door of Heaven and
see what you can see. God means us to
look and catch up now something of the
rapture, and attune our hearts to its
worship.
1t is wide open enough to ee Christ.
Behold Him, the chief among ten thou
sand, all the hammered pomp of Heaven
at His feet. With your enkindled faith
look up along those ranks of gloxv.
VoS oh IL