The Bossier banner., 1891-10-08
And the sounding aisles of the dim wood
RAM to the anth nr,as of tho frnn

| N--e~N A NuAECI "lICIC II Will I1ldICI
along after the foreign despotisms thai
have Knocked and the tyrannies that
have jcered, shall be swept down un,
der the omnipOtent wrath of God, who
hates oppression, and who, by the
strength of His own red right arm,
will make all men free. And so it is
individually, and in the family, and in
| the church, and in the world, that
through darkness and storm and
trouble men, women, churches, ma
tlons are developed.
Again, l see in my text the beauty of
unfaltering friendship. l suppose there
were plenty of friends for Naomi
while she was in prosperity; but of all
her acquaintances, how many were
willing to trudge off with her toward
Judea, when she had to make that
lonely journey? One-the heroine of
my text One-absolutely one. l sup
pose when Naomi's husband was living,
and they had plenty of money, and all
things went well, they had a great
many callers; but l suppose that after
her husband died, and her property
went, and she got old and poor, she
was not troubled very much with call
ers. All the birds that sang in the
bower while the sun shone have gone
to their nests, now the night has fallen.
Oh, these beautiful sunfowers that
spread out their color in the morning
hour! but they are always asleep when
the sun is going down! Job had
plenty of friends when he was the rich
est man in Uz; but when his property
went and the trials came, then there
were none so much that pestered as
Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the
Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
Life often seems to be a mere game,
where the successful PLAYER pulls down
all the other men into his own lap.
Let suspicious arise about mans char
acter, and he becomes like bank in a
panic, and all the imputations rush on
him and break down in a day that
character which in due time would have
had strength to defend himself There
are regulations that have been half
century in building which go down
under some moral exposure, as a vast
temple is consumed by the touch of
sulphurous match. A hog can uproot
century plant. In this world, so full of
beartlessness and hypocrisy, how thrill
ing it Is to find some friend as faithful
in days of adversely as in days of pros
perity! David had such friend in
Hushai; the Jews had such friend in
MorGecai, who never forgot their cause;
Paul had such friend in Onesiphorus,
who visited him in Jail; Christ had such
in the Marys, who adhered to Him on
the cross; Noami had such a one in
Ruth, who cried out: "Entreat me not
to leave thee, or to return from follow
ing after thee, for wither thou goest,
will go, and where thou lodgest, 1 will
lodge; thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God; where thou diest
will die, and there will be buried;
the Lord do SO to me, and more also, if
aught but death part thee and me-"
Again, / learn from this subject that
paths which open in hardship and dark
ness often come out in places of JOY.
When Ruth started from Moab toward
Jerusalem, to go along with her moth
er-ln-law, l suppose the people said:
'Oh, what foolish creature to go awav
from her fathers house, to go off with
a poor old woman toward the land of
Judea They won't live to get across
the desert. They will be drowned in
the sea, or the jackals of the wilderness
will destroy them," 1t was a very dark
morning when Ruth started off with
Naomi; but behold her in my text in
the harvest-feld of Boaz to be affianced
to one of the lords of the land, and be-
come one of the grandmothcrs of Jesus
Christ, the Lord of Glory. And so 1t |
often is that a path which starts very
darkly ends very brightly.
When you started out for Heaven,
oh. how dark was the hour of conyic- |
5ion-how Sinai thundered, and devils |
and the darkness thickened! |
All the sins of your life pounced upon
you, and it was the darkest hour Won
ever saw when you first found out your
sins. After awhile you went into the
harvest field of Gods mercy; you began
20 CLEAN in the fields of Divine promise
Ind you had more sheaves than Won
could carry, as the voice of God ad-
iressed you, saying: BLESSED is the
nan whose tranSgressions are forgiven.
Ind whose sins are covered" A verv
lark starting in conviction, a very
bright ending in the pardon and the
lope and the triumph of the Gospel
So, very often in our worldly business
# in our spiritual career, we start off
N very dark path. We must go. The
Iesh may shrink back, but there is a
oice within, or a voice from above,
aging, ''You must CO. and we have
D drink the gall, and we have to carry
ne cross, and we have to traverse the
esert and we are pounded and failed
I Misrepresentation and abuse, and we
ave to urge our way through ten thou
and obstacles that have to be slain bv
ur own right arm. We have to ford ,
he river, we have to climb the noun I
hin, we have to storm the castle, but. !
lessed be God, the day of rest and re- ,
ard will come. On the tip-top of the :
aptured battlements we will shout the :
ctory; if not in this world, then in 9
lat world where there is no gall To ;