The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-01-16

minute come up against high wall OF
what we do not know.
1 wonder how it looks over there.
Somebody tells me it is like paved
city-paved with gold; and another man
fells me it is like fountain, and it is
like tree, and it is like triumphal
procession; and the next man ] meet
tells me it is all figurative. l really
want to know, after the body is resur-
rected, what they wear and what they
eat; and l have an Undesirable curl
osity to know what it is, and how it is,
and where it is. Columbus risked his
life to find the American continent, and
shall we shudder to go out on a voyage
of discovery which shall reveal a vaster
and more brilliant country? John
franklin risked his life to find passage
to eternal summer? Men in Switzer-
land travel up the heights of the Mat
terhorn, with alpenstock and guides,
and rockets and ropes, and getting half
way up, stumble and fall down in hor-
rible massacre. They just wanted to
say they had been on the tops of those
high peaks. And shall we fear to go
out for the ascent of the eternel hills
which start one thousand miles beyond
where stop the highest peaks of the
Alps, and when in that ascent there is
no peril? A man doomed to die stepped
on the scaffold, and said in Joy: ''Now,
in ten minutes l will know the great
secret" One minute after the vital
functions ceased, the little child that
died last night knew more than Paul
himself before he died.
Friends, the exit from this world, or
death, if you please to call it, to the
Christian is glorious explanation. 1t is
demonstration. It is illumination. 1t
is sunburst. 1t is the opening of all the
windows. 1t is shutting up the cate
chism of doubt, and the unrolling of all
the scrolls of positive and accurate in
formation. Instead of standing at the
foot of the ladder and looking up, it is
standing at the top of the ladder and
looking down. 1t is the last mystery
taken out of botany, and geology, and
astronomy, and theology. Oh, will it
not be grand to have all questions an
swered? The perpetually recurring in
terrogation point changed for the mark
of exclamation? All riddles solved.
Who will fear to go out on that dis
covery, when all the questions are to be
decided which we have been discussing
all our lives? Who shall not clap his
hands in the anticipation of that blessed
country, if it be no better than through
holy curiosity? AS this Paul of my text
did not suppress his curiosity, we need
not suppress ours. Yes, have an I'M
limited curiosity about all religious
things, and as this city of Rome was so
intimately connected with apostolic
times, the incidents of which emphasize
and explain and augment the Christian
religion, you will not take it as an evil
dence of prying spirit, but as the out
bursting of a Christian curiosity when l
say must also see Rome.
Our desire to visit this city is also in
tensifed by the fact that we want to be
confirmed in the feeling that human
life is brief, but its work lasts for cent
uries, indeed, forever. Therefore
show us the antiquities of old Rome,
about which we have been reading for
a lifetime, but never seen. In our be-
loved America we have no antiquities.
A church eighty years old overawes us
with its age. We have in America
some cathedrals hundreds and thou
sands of years old, but they are in yell
lowstone Park or California Canyon,
and their architecture and masonry
were by the omnipotent God We want
to see the buildings, or ruins of old
buildings, that were erected hundreds
and thousands of years ago by human
hands. They lived forty or seventy
years, but the arches they lifted, the
paintings they penciled, the sculpture
they chiseled, the roads they laid out, l
understand, are yet to be seen, and we
want you to show them to US. l can
hardly wait until Monday morning. I
must also see Rome.
We want to be impressed with the
fact that what men do on small scale
or large scale lasts thousand years,
lasts forever, that we build for eternity
and that we do so in very short space
of time. God is the only old living
presence. But it is an old age without
any of the infirmities or limitations of
old age. There is passage of Script
ure which speaks of the birth of the
mountains, for there was time when
the Andes were born, and the Pyrennes
were born, and the Sierra Nevadas were
born, but before the birth of those
mountains the Bible tells us, God was
born, aye was never born at all, because
He always existed. Psalm xc. 2: 'sBe-
fore the mountains were brought forth,
or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and
the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, Thou art God" How short
is human life, what antiquity attaches
to its worth! How everlasting is God!
Show us the antiquities, the things that
were old when America was discovered,
old when Paul went up and down these
streets sight seeing, old when Christ
was born. I must-I must also see
Rome
Another reason for our visit to this
city is that we want to see the places
where the mightiest intenccts and the
greatest natures wrought for our Chris
tian religion. We have been told in
America by some people of swollen
heads that the Christian religion is