The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-04-24

write and dream about the pilgrims
progress to the Celestial city, or John
Bunyan had attempted an essay on the
human will.
Brighter than the light, fresher than
the fountains, deeper than the seas, are
all these Gospel themes. Song has no
melody, flowers have no sweetness, sun
set sky has no color, compared with
these glorious themes. These harvests
of grace spring up quicker than we can
sickle them. Kindling pulpits with
their fire, and producing revolutions
with their power, lighting up dying
beds with their glory, they are the
sweetest thought for the poet. and they
are the most thrilling illustration for
the orator, and they offer the most in
tense scene for the artist, and they arc
to the ambassador of the sky all enthu-
siasm. Complete pardon for direst guilt.
Brightest hope for grimmest death.
Grandest resurrection for darkest sepul-
cher. Oh, what Gospel to preach!
Christ over all in it. His birth, His suf-
fering, His miracles, His parallels, His
sweat, His tears, His blood, His atone
ment, His intercession-what glorious
themes! Do we exercise faith? Christ
is its object. Do we have love? 1t
fastens on Jesus. Have we fondness
for the Church? 1t is because Christ
died for it. Have we hope of Heaven?
1t is because Jesus went ahead, the
herald and the forerunner.
The royal robe of Demetrius was so
costly, so beautiful, that after he had
put it off no one ever dared put it on;
but this robe of Christ, richer than that,
the poorest and the wannest and the
worst may wear.
''Where sin abounded grace may much
more abound"
sob, my sins, my SINS" said Martin
Luther to Staupitz, my sins, my sins!''
The fact is, that the brawny German
student had found Latin Bible that
made him quake, and nothing else ever
did make him quake; and when he
found how, through Christ, he was par
doned and saved, he wrote to friend,
saying:
Come ever and join US great and aw-
full sinners saved by the grace of God.
You seem to be only slender sinner,
and you don't much extol the mercy of
God; but we that have been such very
awful sinners praise His glace the more
now that we have been redeemed" Can
it be that you are SO desperately egotis-
teal that you feel yourself in frst-rate
spiritual trim, and that from the root of
the hair to the tip of the toe you are
scarless and immaculate? What you
need is looking-glass, and here it is in
the Bible. Poor, and wretched, and
miserable, and blind, and naked from
the crown of the head to the sole of the
foot, full of wounds and putrefyins
sores. No health in US. And then take
the fact that Christ gathered up all the
notes against us and paid them, and
then offered us the receipt.
And how much we need Him in our
sorrows! We are independent of cir
cumstances if we have His grace. Why,
He made Paul sing in the dungeon, and
under that grace St John from desolate
Patmos heard the blast of the apocalyp-
| tic trumpets. After all other candles
have been snuffed out, this is the light
| that gets brighter and brighter unto
the perfect day; and after, under the
hard hoofs of calamity, all the pools
of worldly enjoyment have been
trampled into deep mire, at the foot OF
the eternal rock the Christian, from
cups of granite, lily-rimmed and vine
covered, puts out the thirst of His soul.
Again, 1 remark that Christ is above
all in dying alleviations. I have not
any sympathy with the morbity abroad
about our demise. The Emperor of
Constantinople arranged that on the day
of his coronation the stone-mason should
come and consult him about the tomb
stone that after awhile he would need.
And there are men who are monomani-
acal on the subjectof departure from this
life by death, and the more they think
of it the less they are prepared to go.
This is an unmanliness not worthy of
you, not worthy of me. Saladin, the
greatest conqueror of his day, while dy-
ing, ordered that the tunic he had on
him be carried after his death on his
spear at the head of his army, and then
the soldier, ever and anon, should stop
and say:
Behold all that is left of SaIadin,
the Emperor and conqueror! Of all the
I states he conquered, of all the wealth
he accumulated, nothing did he retain
but this shroud." have no sympathy
with such behavior, or such absurd
demonstration, or with much that we
hear uttered in regard to departure from
this life to the next. There is COM
monsensical idea on this subject that
you and need to consider-that there
are only two styles of departure.
A thousand feet underground, by light
of torch toiling in a miners shaft, a
ledge of rock may fall upon US, and we
may die miners death. Far out at
sea, falling from the slippery ratlines
and broken on the halyards, we may die
sailors death. On mission of mercy
in hospital, amid broken bones and
reeking leprosies aud raging fevers, we
may die philanthropist's death On
the field of battle, serving God and our
country, slugs through the heart the
gun-carriage may roll over us, and we
may die patriots death. But, after
all, there are only two styles of depart
ure-the death of the righteous and the
death of the wicked-and we all want
10 Fo,xoau