The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-12-17

ment on Sunday and devour widows
houses all the week. We have got to
stop our indignation against the Hit
tites and the Jebusites and the Gergi-
shites, and let those poor wretches go,
and apply our indignation to the mod
ern transgressions which need to be
dragged out and slain. Ahabs here.
Herods here. Jezebels here. The
massacre of the infants here Strike
for God so hard that while you slay the
sin the sword will adhere TO your own
hand tell you my friends, Ne
want few John Knoxes and John
Wesleys in the Christian church to-day.
The whole tendency is to refine on
Christian work. We keep on refining
on it until we send apologize word to
1nlquity we are about to capture it.
And we must go with sword silver
chased and presented by the ladies,
and we must ride on white palfrey I'M
der embroidered housing, putting the
spurs in only just enough to make the
charger dance gracefully, and then we
must send a missive, delicate as a we'd
ding card, to ask the old black giant of
SIN II ne Will not surrender.
You and have seen it many a time.
There are in the United States to-day
many aged minister of the Gospel.
They are too feeble now to preach. In.
the church records the word opposite
their name is emeritus" or the words
are, "a minister without charge"
They were a heroic race. They had
small salaries, and but few books and
they swan spring freshet to meet
their appointments. But they did
in their day a mighty work for
God. They took off more of the heads
of Philistine iniquity than you could
| count from noon to shutdown. You put
that old minister of the Gospel now
into a prayer meeting, or occasional
pulpit, or sick room where there is
some one to be comforted, and it is the
same old ring to his voice and the same
old story of pardon and peace and
Christ and Heaven. His hand has so
long clutched the sword in Christian
conflict he can not drop it. Ills hand
clave unto the sword"
had in My parish in Philadelphia a
had been the companion and adviser of
| the early presidents, Madison and Mon
roe. lie had welded vast influence,
but only knew him as a very aged
man. The most remarkable thing about
him was his ardor for Christ. When he
could not stand up in the meetings
without propping he would throw his
arm around a pillar of the church,
and though his mind was partially gone,
his love for Christ was so great that all
were in deep respect and profound admit
ration, and were moved when he spoke.
l was called to see him die I entered
the room, and he said: Mr. Talmage,
l can not speak to you now He was
in very pleasant delirium, as he i'm
agined he had an audience before him.
He said: II must tell these people to
come to Christ and prepare for Heaven"
And then in this pleasant delirium, both
arms lifted. this octOgenarian preached
Christ, and told of the gIories of the
world to come. There, lying on his dy-
ing pillow, his dying hand clave to his
sword.
There is the headless body of Paul
on the road to Ostea. His great brain
and his great heart have been severed.
The elnwood rods had stung him fear
fully. When the corn ship broke up
he swan ashore, corning up drenched
with the brine. Every day since that
day when the horse reared under him
in the suburbs of Damascus, as the
supernatural light fell, down to this
day, when he was sixty-eight years of
age. and old and decrepit from the
prison cell of the Mamertine,
he has been outrageously treated,
and he is waiting to die? How
does he spend his last hours?
Telling the world how badly he feels,
and describing the rheumatism that he
got in prison, the rheumatism affecting
his limbs, or the neuralgia piercing his
temples, or the thirst that fevers his
tongne? Oh, no. His last words are
the battle shout for Christendom: 81
am now ready to be offered, and the .
time of my departure is at hand; have
fought the good fight" And so his dy-
ing hands clave unto the sword.
1t was in the front room on the second
floor that my father lay a-dying. 1t was
Saturday morning, four o'clock. just
three years before that day my mother
had left him for the skies, and he had
been homesick to join her company.
He was eighty-three years of age.
Ministers of the Gospel came in to com
fort him, but he comforted them. How
wonderfully the words sounded out
from his dying pillow: II have been
young and now am old, yet have I
never seen the righteous forsalken, or
his seed begging bread" They bathed
his brow, and they bathed his
hands, and they bathed his feet, and
they succeeded III Strengthening out the
feet; but they did not succeed in bath
ing open the hand so it would stay
open. They bathed the hand open, but
it came shut. They bathed it open
again, but it came shut What was the
matter with the thumb and the fingers
of that old hand? All! it had SO long
clutched the sword of Christian conflict
that his hand clave unto the sword"
preach this sermon as tonic. I
want on to hold the truth with inerad-