The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-05-08

in the planks, lay out new course, and
set sail for Heaven. You have had
the spiritual dumps long enough.
You will please the Lord more by
being happy than by being miserable.
Have you not sometimes started out in
the rain with your umbrella and you
were busy and you did not notice that
the rain had stopped, and though it had
cleared off you still had your umbrella
up, and when you disc overed what you
were doing you felt silly enough? That
is what some of you are doing In relig-
ious things. You have got so used to
sadness that though the rain has
stopped you still have your umbrella up.
Come out of the shadow. Ascend the
stairs of your sepulcher. Step out into
the broad light of monday. We come
around you to help remove your grave
clothes, and voice from the heavens,
tremulous but omnipotent, commands
Loose him and let him go.
I think that all the stars are inhab-
tied, and by beings like the human race
in feelings and sentim ents, and the diff
ference is in lung respiration and heart
beat and physical conformation; their
physical conformation fit for the eli
mate of their world and our physical
conformation fit for the climate of our
world. So we shall feel at home IN any
of the stellar neighborhoods, Our physiC-
al limita ton having ceased. One of
our first realizations in getting out of
this world, 1 think will be that in this
world we were very much pent UP,
and had cramped apartments, and
were kept on the limits. The most
even our small world is water, and the
water says to the human race: Don't
come here or you will drown" A few
thousand feet up the atmosphere is I'M
inhabitable, and the atmosphere says to
the human race: Don't come up here or
you can not breathe" Anew miles down
the earth is a furnace of fire, and the
fire says: Don't come here or you will
burn" The caverns of the mountains
are full of poisonous gases, and the
gases say: Don't come here or you will
be asphy xiated." And crossing rail
track, you must look out or you will
be crushed. And, standing by steam
will be blown up. And pneumonias and
pleurisies and consumptions and apo
pickles go across this earth in focks, in
droves, in herds. and it is a world of
equinoxes and cyclones and graves. Yet
we are under the delusion that it is the
only place fit to stay in. We want to
stick to the wet plank mid ocean while
the great ship, 'the City of God" of
the Celestial line, goes sailing past, and
would gladly take us up in 1ife-boat.
My Christian friends, let me tear off
your dependence and fright about DISCO
luton. My Lord commands me regard
you, saying:
Loose him and let him go.
Heaven is ninety-fye per cent. better
than this world, one thousand per cent.
better, one million per cent. better.
Take the gladdest, brightest, most jubi
liant days you ever had on earth and
compress them all into one hour, and
that hour would be a requiem, fast
day, gloom, horror, as compared
with the poorest hour they have had in
| Heaven since its first tower was built or
its first gates swung or its FIRST song
caroled.
ooh" you say, ''that may be true, but
am so afraid of crossing over from this
world to the next, and fear the snap
ping of the cord between soul and body. A"
Well, all the surgeons and physicians
and scientists declare that there is no
pang at the parting of the body and
soul, and all the seeming restlessness at
the closing hours of life is involuntary,
and no distress at all. And agree with
the doctors, for what they say is con,
tirmed by the fact that persons who were
! drowned, or were submerged until all
consciousness departed, and were after
ward resuscitated, declare that the sen.
sation of passing into unconsciousness
was pleasurable rather than distressful.
The cage of the body has door on easy
hinges, and when that door of the phys
zeal cage opens the soul simply puts out
its wings and scars.
Loose him, and let him go.
The only part of my recent journey
thai l really dreaded, although did not
say much about it beforehand, was the
landing at Joppa. That is the port OF
| OA1Id4IC0 LUZ GHo 11Oly hduu, anu BlGr6
are many rocks, and in rough weather
people can not land at all. The boats
taking the people from the steamer to
the docks must run between reefs that
looked to me to be about fifty feet apart,
and one misstroke of an oarsrnan or
an unexpected wave has sometimes been
fatal, and hundreds have persisted along
those reefs. Besides that, as we left
Port Said the evening before, an old
traveller said:
''The wind is just right to give you a
rough landing at Joppa; indeed, think
you will not be able to land at ALL"
The fact was that when our Mediterra-
mean steamer dropped anchor near Joppa
andwe put out for shore inthe small boat,
the water was as still as though it had
been sound asleep hundred years, and
we landed as easily as l came on this
platform. Well, your fears have pict-
ured for you an appalling arrival at the
end of your voyage of life, and they say
that the seas will run high and that the
breakers will swallow You up, or that
| if YOU reach Canaan at all If will