The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-01-22

the Bible describes. One night while
by The light of the lamps and torches
these gaieties went ON, two hundred
Benjamites, who had been hidden be-
hind the rocks and among the trees,
dashed upon the scene. They came not
to injure or destroy, but, wishing to set
up households of their own, the women
of their own land having been slain in
battle, and by preconcerted arrange
ment each one of the two hundred
Benjamites seized the one whom he
| chose for the queen of his home, and
carried her away to large estate and
beautiful residence, for these two hun
| dred Benjamites had inherited the
wealth of a nation.
| But we must this afternoon, our last
day before reaching Nazareth, pitch our
! tent on the most famous battlefield of
all time-the Plain of Esdraelon. What
must have been the feelings of the
Prince of Peace as He crossed it on the
way from Jerusalem to Nazareth! Not
q flower blooms there but has in its
veins the Inherited blood of flowers that
drank the blood of fallen armies. Hard
ly a foot of the ground that has
not at some time been quilted
with war-chariots or trampled with
| the hoOfs of cavalry. 1t is a plain
reaching from the Mediterranean to
the Jordan. Upon it look down the
mountains of Tabor and Gilboa and
Carmel. Through it RACES at certain
seasons the River Kishon, which swept
| n hn Of 81 hot 10
occurring in November, when there is
almost always shower of meteors, SO
that 1.-The stars in their courses" were
said to have fought against Sisera.
Through this plain drove Jehu, and
the iron chariots of the Canaanites,
scythed at the hubs Of the wheels, hew-
ing down their awful swathes of death,
thousands in q minute. The Syrian
armies, the Turkish armies, the Egyp-
tian armies again and again trampled
it. There they career across it David
and Joshua, and Godfrey, and Richard
| CRur de Lion, and Baldwin, and Sala-
dina plain not only famous for the
past but famous because the Bible says
tina great decisive battle of the world
will be fought there-the battle of Ar
mageddou.
To me the plain was the more absorb
ing because of the desperate battles
| here and in regions round in which the
Holy Cross, the very two pieces of wood
on which Jesus was supposed 10 have
| been crucified, was carried as a stand
ard at the head of the Christian host;
and that night, closing my eyes in my
tent on the Plain of Esdraelon-for
there are some things we can see bet
| ter with eyes shut than open-the
scenes of that ancient war came before
me. The twelfth century was clos
| ing, and Saladin at the head
of eighty thousand mounted troops
was crying ''Ho for Jerusa-
lem! Ho for all Palestine!" and
before them every thing went down, but
not without unparalleled resistance. In
one place one hundred and thirty Chris.
tians were surrounded by many thou.
sands of sfurious Mohammedans For
one whole day the one hundred and
thirty held out against these thousands.
Tennyson's 'Six Hundred" when some
one had blundered," were eclipsed by
these one hundred and thirty fighting
for the Holy Cross. They took hold the
lances which had pierced them with
death wounds, and pulling them out of
their own breasts and sides, hurled them
back again at the enemy. On went the
fight, until all but one Christian had
fallen, and he, mounted on the last
horse, welded his battle axe right and
left till his horse fell under the plunge
of the juvelins, and the rider, making
the sign Of the cross toward the sky.
gave up his life on the point of a score
of spears. But soon after, the last bat
tie came. History portrays it. poetry
chants it, painting colors it, and all
ages admire that last struggle tc
keep in possession the wooden
cross on which Jesus was said
to have expired. 1t was a battle
in which mingled the fury of devils and
the grandeur of angels Thousands OF
dead Christians on this side. Thou.
sands of dead Mohammedans on the
other side. The battle was hottest
close around the wooden cross upheld
by the Bishop of Ftolemais, himself
| OhN anu NUOH INC
Bishop of Ptolemais dropped dead, the
Bishop of LYDIA seized the cross and
again lifted it carrying it onward into
a wilder and fiercer light and sword
against javelin, and battle-axe upon
helmet and piercing spear against
splintering shield. Horses and men
tumbled into Heterogeneous death Now
the wooden cross on which the armies
of Christians had kept their eye begins
to waver, begins to descend. 1t fallsl
and the wailing of the Christian host at
its disappearance browns the huzzah of
the victSeious Moslems.
But that standard of the cross only
seemed to fall. 1t rides the sky to-day
in triumph. Five hundred million souls.
the mightiest army of the ages, are
following it, and where that goes thew
will go. across the earth and up the
mighty sleeps of the heavens. In the
twelfth century it seemed to go down,
but in the nineteenth century it is
the mightiest symbol Of glory and tri-
umph, and means more than any other
| az 11n,,l 10 =,