The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-01-30

education and character, get on TWICE
as we'll. He sometimes guesses as to
what it all means. He says:
perhaps riches would spoil me.
Perhaps poverty is necessary to keep
me humble. Perhaps might, if things
were otherwise, be tempted into dissi-
patton" But there is no complete solu-
ton to the mystery. He sees through
glass darkly, and must wait for higher
unfolding. VIII there be an explana-
ton? Yes; God will take that man in
the light of the throne and say: ''Child,
immortal, here the explanation! You
remember the failing of that great en-
terprise. This is the explanation"
And you will answer: sit is all
rightg'
I SEQ every day profound mysteries of
Providence. There is no question we
ask oftener than Why? There are hun
dreds of graves that need to be ex-
planned. Hospitals for tho blind and
lame, asylums for the idiotic and in
sane, alnshouses for the destitute and
world of pain and misfortune that de-
mand more than human solution. All!
God will clear it all up. In the light
that pours from the throne no dark
mystery can live. Things now utterly
inscrutable will be illumined as plainly
as though the answer was written on
the jasper wall OR sounded in the tenn
pie anthem. Bartimeus will thank God
that he was blind; and Lazarus that he
was covered with sores; and Joseph that
he was cast into the pit; and Daniel
that he was denned with lions; and Paul
that he was humpbacked; and David
that he was driven from Jerusalem; and
and the sewing woman that she could
get only few pence for making gar
ment; and that invalid that for twenty
years he could not lift his head from
the pillow; and that widow that she had
such hard work to earn bread for her
children. You know that in song diff
ferent voices carry different parts The
sweet and overwhelming part of the
hallelujah of Heaven will not be carried
by those who rode in high places and
and give sumptuous entertainments. but
pauper children will sing it, beggars
will sing it, redeemed hod carriers will
sing it, those who were once the offscour-
ing of earth will sing it. The hallelu-
iah will be all the grander for earth's
weeping eyes, and aching heads, and
exhausted hands, and scourged backs,
and martyred agonies.
Again: The thought of my text is
true when applied to the enjoyment of
the righteous in Heaven. I think we
have but little idea of the number of the
righteous in Heaven. Infidels say:
''Your Heaven will be a very small
place compared with the world OF the
lost; for. according to your teaching, the
majority OF men will be destroyed" 1
deny the charge. / suppose that the
multitude of the finally lost, as COM
pared with the multitude of the finally
saved, will be handful. I suppose
that the few sick people in the hospitals
of our great cities, as compared with the
hundreds of thousands of well people,
would not be smaller than the number
of those who shall be cast out in suffer-
ing, compared with those who shall have
upon them the health of Heaven. For
we are to remember that we are living in
OILY the beginning of the Christian dis
pensation, and that this whole world is
to be populated redeemed, and that ages
of light and love are to flow on. If this
be so, the multitudes of the saved will
be in vast majority.
Take all the congregations that have
assembled for worship throughout Chris
tendon. Put them together, and they
would make but small audience COM
pared with the thousa nds and tens of
thousands, and ten thousand times ten
thousand, and the hundred and forty
and four thousand that shall stand
around the throne. Those flashed up to
Heaven in martyr fires; those tossed for
many years upon the invalid couch;
those fought in the armies of liberty,
and rose as they fell; those tumbled
from high scaffoldings, or slipped from
the mast, or were washed off into the
sea. They came up from Corinth, from
Laodicea, from the Red Sea bank and
Gennesaret's wave, from Egyptian brick
yards and Gideon's threshing floor.
Those thousands of years ago slept the
last sleep, and these are this moment
having their eyes closed, and their
limbs stretched out for the sepulcher.
A General, expecting an attack from
the enemy, stands on the hill and looks
through a feld-glass and sees in the
great distance multitudes approaching,
but has no idea of their numbers. He
says: 81 can lot tell any thing about
them. 1 merely know that there are
great number" And so John, without
attempting to count, says: "a great
multitude that no man can number"
We are told that Heaven is a
place of happiness; but what do
we know about happiness? Happi-
ness in this world is only a half-fedged
thing; fowery path, with a serpent
kissing across it; a broken pitcher, from
which the water was dropped before we
co Id drink it; thrill of exhilaration,
followed by disastrous reactions. To
help understand the Joy of Heaven, the
Bible takes US to river. We stand on
the grassy bank. We see the waters
flow on with ceaseless wave. But the
filth of the cities is emptied into it, and
the banks are torn, and unhealthy ex-
halations spring up from it, and we
fail TO get an idea of the River of Life