The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-07-10

the vessel and saved. Did ever men
come so near watery grave withouS
dropping into it? How narrowly they
escaped!-escaped only with the skin
of their teeth"
There are others who in attempting
to come to God must run between a
great many business perplexities. If
man goes over to business at ten o'clock
in the morning, and comes away at three
o'clock in the afternoon, he has some
time for religion; but how shall you find
time for religious contemplation when
you are driven from sunrise to sunset,
and have been for five years going be"
hind in business, and are frequently
dunned by creditors whom you can not
pay, and when, from Monday morning
until Saturday night, you are lodging
bills that you can not meet? You walk
day by day in uncertainties that have
kept your brain on fire for the past
three years. Some with less business
troubles than you have gone crazy.
The clerk has heard a noise in the back
counting-room, and gone in and found
the chief man of the firm a raving
maniac; or the wife has heard the bang
of pistol in the back parlor, and gone
in, stumbling over the dead body OF
her husband-a suicide. There are in
this house to-day three hundred men
pursued, harrassed, trodden down and
scalped, Of business perplexities, and
which way to turn next they do not
know. Now, God will not be hard on
you. He knows what obstacles arc in
the way of your being Christian, and
your first effort in the right direction
He will crown with success. Do not let
Satan, with cotton bales, and kegs, anG
hogsheads, and counters, and stocks OF
unstable goods block up your way to
Heaven. Gather up all your energies
Tighten the girdle about your loins.
Take an agonizing look into the face Of
God, and then say, Here goes one
grand effort for life eternal" and then
bound away for Heaven, escaping as
with the skin of your teeth"
l find in the community large class
of men who have been so cheated, so
lied about, so outrageously wronged
that they have lost faith in every thing.
In world where every thing seems so
topsy-turvey they do not see how there
can be any God. They are COMPOUNDED
and frenzied and misanthropic. Elab-
crate arguments to prove to them the
truth of Christianity, or the truth of
any thing else, touch them nowhere.
Hear me, all such men. l preach to
you no rounded periods, no ornamental
discourse, but put my hand on your
shoulder and invite you into the peace
of the Gospel. Here is rock on which
you may stand firm. though the waves
dash against it harder than the Allan
tic, pitching it's surf clear above Eddy
stone Lighthouse. Do not charge upon
God all these troubles of the world. AS
long as the world stuck to God, God
stuck to the world; but the earth seeded
from His government, and hence all
these outrages, and all these woes. God
is good. For many hundreds of years
He has heen coaxing the world to come
back to Him; but the more He has
coaxed the more violent have men been
in their resistance, and they have
stepped back and stepped back until
they have dropped into ruin.
Try this God, ye who have had the
bloodhounds after you, and who have
thought that God had forgotten you.
Try Him and see if He will not help.
Try Him and see if He will not pardon.
Try Him and see if He will not save.
The flowers of spring have no bloom
so sweet as the Towering of Christ's af-
fections. The sun hath no warmth COM
pared with the glow of His heart. The
waters have no refreshment like the
fountain that will Stake the thirst of
deer stands with his lip and
nostril thrust in the cool mountain
torrent the hunter may be coming
through the thicket. Without cracking
a stick under his foot, he comes close by
the stag, aims his gun, draws the trigger,
and the poor thing rears in its death
agony and falls backward, it's antlers
crashing on the rocks; but the painting
heart that drinks from the waite brooks
of Gods promise shall never be fatally
wounded, and shall never die.
This world is poor portion for your
soul, oh business man! An Eastern King
| had craven on his tomb two fingers,
represented as sounding upon each
other with snap, and under
them the motto: ''All is not
worth that" Apicius Celius hanged
himself because his steward informed
him that he mad only $50, OO0left. All
of this worlds riches make but small
inheritance for a soul. Robespierre at
tempted to win the applause of the
world; but when he was dying, woman
came rushing through the crowd. cry
ing to him: Murderer of my kindred,
| descend to hell, covered with the curses
of every mother in Francer' MANY
who have expected the plaudits of the
world have died under its Anathema
Maranatha.
Oh, find your peace in God. Make one
strong pull for Heaven. No halfway
work will do it. There sometimes
comes time on shipboard when every
thing must be sacrificed to save the
passengers. The cargo is nothing, the
rigging nothing. The captain puts the
trumpet to his lips and shouts! 'Cut