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

you to a place where you can have a
soft mattress and an easy pillow"
Now the Samaritan has got the
wounded man on his feet and
with much Juggling and lifting,
puts him on the beast, for it is
astonishing how strong the spirit of
kindness will make one, as you have
seen mother after three weeks of
| sleepless watching of her boy, down
with scarlet fever, lift that half-grown
boy, heavier than herself, from couch
to lounge And so this sympathetic
Samaritan has, unaided, put the wound
ed man in the saddle. and at slow pace
the extemporized ambulance is moving
toward the tavern. "You feel better
now, l think" says the Samari-
tan to the Hebrew, YES" he
says, 81 do feel better" HAL
loo, you landlord help me
carry this man in and make him COM
Portable" That night the Samaritan
sat up with the Jew, giving him wafer
whenever he felt thirsty and turning
his pillow when it got hot and in the
morning before the Samaritan started
on his journey, he said: Landlord,
now, 1 am obliged to go. Take good
care of this man and I will be along
here soon again and pay you for all you
do for him. Meanwhile here is some
thing to meet present expenses. " The
''two pence" he gave the landlord
sounds small, but it was as much as ten
dollars here and now, considering what
it would there and then buy of food and
lodging.
In Philadelphia young woman was
dying. She was a wreck. Sunl1en into
the depths of depravity, there was no
lower depth for her to reach. Word
come to the midnight mission that she
was dying in haunt of iniquity near
by. Who would go to tell her of the
Christ of Mary Magdalen? This one
refused, and that one refused, saying:
II dare not go there" A Christian
woman, her white locks typical of her
purity of soul, said: 81 will go, and
will go now" She went and sat down
by the dying girl and told of
the Christ who came to seek and save
that which was lost. First to the for
lorn one came the tears of repentance,
and then the smile as though she had
begun to hope for the pardon of Him.
who came to save to the uttermost.
Then, just before she breathed her last,
she said to the angel of mercy bending
over her pillow: Would you kiss me?"
ST viii, said the Christian woman, as
she put on her cheek the last salutation
before in the heavenly world, think,
God gave her the welcoming kiss. That
was religion! Yes, that was religion.
Good Samaritans along every street, and
along every road, as we'll as this one on
the road to Jericho.
But our procession of sight-seers is
again in line, and here we pass through
a deep ravine, and I cry to the drago-
man: David, what place do you call
this?" and he replied: "This is the
brook Cherith, where Elijah was fed by
overthrow my lifelong notions of the
place where Elijah was waited on by
the black servants of the sky. brook
to me had meant slight depression of
ground and stream fordable, and per-
haps fifteen feet wide. But here was a
chasm that an earthquake must have
scooped out with its biggest shovel
or split with its mightiest battle
axe. Six hundred feet deep is
it, and the brook Cherith
is river, which, when in full force, is
silver wedge, splitting the mountains
into precipices. The feathered de-
scendants of Elijah's ravens still wing
their way across this ravine, but are not
like the crows we supposed them to be.
They are as large as eagles, and one of
them could carry in its beak and
clinched claw at once enough food for
half dozen Elijahs. No thanks to the
ravens; they are carnivorous, and would
rather have picked out the eyes of
Elijah, whom they found at the mouth
of his cave on the side of Cherith, wait
ing for his breakfast, having drunk his
morning beverage from the rushing
stream beneath, than have been his but
lers and purveyors.
But God compelled them, as He has
always compelled and always will com
pei black and cruel and vershadowing
providences, to carry help to His chill
dren if they only have faith enough to
catch the blessing as it dropped from
the seeming adversely, the greatest
blessing always coming, not with white
wings, but black wings. Black wings
of conviction bringing pardon to the
sinner. Black wings of crucifxion over
Calvary, bringing redemption for the
world, black wings OF American revo-
luton bringing free institutions to
continent Black wings of Ameri-
can civil war, bringing unifcation
and solidarity to the republic.
Black wings of the Judgment day. bring
ing resurrection to an entombed human
race. And in the last day, when all
your life and mine will be summed up,
we will find that the greatest blessing
we ever received came on the wings of
the black ravens of disaster. Bless
God for trouble! Bless God for sickness!
Bless God for persecution! Bless God
for poverty! You never hear of any man
or woman of great use to the world who
had not had lots of trouble The dta-
mond must be cut. The wheat must be
threshed. The black ravens must flv
| Who arc these nearast tho +b,a.. q