The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1892-05-26

1
gtisting Sin, and pulled up until wi
would have been like Julius Cesar
who was made by sycophants to believe
that he was divine, and the frecfles OF
his face were as the stars of the firma
| ment.
One of the swiftest transatlantic vov
ages made last summer by our swiftes
steamer was because she had stormy
wind aaaft. chasing her from New
York to Liverpool. But to those going
IN the opposite direction the storm wa:
a buffeting and a hinderance. 1t is {
bad thing to have storm ahead, push
ing us back; but if we be Gods chill
Gren and aiming toward Heaven the
storms OF life will only chase us the
sooner into the harbor. am so glad
to believe that the monsoons and ty-
| phoons and mistrals and siroccOs oil
| the land and sea are not unclaimed
maniacs let loose upon the earth,
but are under Divine supervision.
| am SO glad that the God of the
seven stars is also the God of Orion.
| 1t was out of Dante's suffering came
the sublime ''Divina Commedia" and
out of John Millions blindness came
paradise Lost" and out of misera BILE
infdel attack came the 'Bridgewater
Treatise" in favor of Christianity, and
| out of David's exile came the songs of
consolation, and out of the sufferings
OF Christ came the possibility of the
worlds redemption, and out of your
bereavement, your persecution, your
poverties, your misfortunes may yet
come an eternal Heaven.
Oh, now get the best view of God l
ever had! There are two kinds Of SER
mons | never want to preach-the one
that presents God so kind, so indulgent,
SO lenient, so imbecile that men may do
what they will against Him, and frac-
ture His every law, and put the pry of
their lmpertinence and rebellion under
His face and stabbing at His heart He
takes them up in His arms and kisses
thelrinfuriated brow and cheek, saying:
''Of such is the kingdom of Heaven"
The other kind of sermon l meyer want
to preach is the one that represents
God as all fire and torture and thunder
cloud, with red-hot pitchfork tossing
the human race into paroxysms of in
finite agony. The sermon that l am
now preaching believes in a God of
loving, kindly warning, the God of
spring and winter, the God of the
Pleiades and Orion.
When read, ''In my Fathers house
are many mansions" I do not know
but that each world is a room, and as
many rooms as there are worlds, stel-
lar stairs, stellar galleries, stellar hall
ways stellar windows, stellar domes.
How our departed friends must pity
us, shut up in these cramped apart
ments, tired if we walk fifteen miles,
when they some morning, by one stroke
of wing, can make circuit of the whole
stellar system, and be back in time
for matinsl Perhaps yonder twink1ing
constellation is the residence of the
martyrs; that group of twelve 1umi-
narles is the celestial home of the
Apostles. Perhaps that steep of light
is the dwelling-place of angles cheru-
bic. seraphic, archangelic. A mansion
With as many rooms as worlds, and all
their windows Illuminated for festivity.
oh, how this wilens and lifts and
stimulates our expectation! How little
it makes the present, and how
stupendous it makes the futurel How
it consoles us about our -pious dead,
who, instead of being boxed up and un.
der the ground have the range of
as many rooms as there are worlds, and
welcome everywhere, for it iss the Fa-
theirs house, in which there areAmany
mansionsi~ Oh, Lord G Cd of the Seven
Stars and Olion, how!can Is.endure5 the
transport, the ecstasy of such vision!
mustsobey my text and seek Him. 1
will seek Him. l seek Him now, for /
call to mind that it is not the material
universe that is most valuable, but the
spiritual, and that each of us have
soul, worth more than all the worlds
which the inspired herdsman saw from
his booth on the field of Tekoa. "a .
| had studied it before, but the ca.
thedral of Cologne, Germany, never i'm,
pressed me as it did the last time I saw
it. It's admittedly the grandest Gothic
structure in the world, it's foundation
laid in 124S, only eight or nine
yeass ago completed. More than
six hundred years. in building.
All Europe taxed for its construc.
ton. Its chapel, Of the Magi, with
precious stones enough to purchase a
kingdom. It's chapel of st. Agnes, with
of painting. It's spire
springing five hundred and eleven feet
into the heavens. It's stained glass the
chorus of allrich colors Statues en-
the pill lars and sencircling all.
Statues above statues until sculpture
can do nosmore,,sbut faints and falls
back against carved stalls and down |
on payements, over which the kings |
and queens of the earth have walked |
to confession. Nave and aisles and
and. portals. combining, the
Splenefors ofs1nrise. -Inteifated.. inter |
foliated, intercolnmned grandeur. sSAs |
stood outside, looking at the double |
range of flying buttresses and the
forest OF pinnacles, higher and higher
Ind higher, until Italmost reeled from |
dizziness, exclaimed: Great doxolpv
n stone! Frozen prayer of many ma
ions" - So e-sr-s
But while standing there I saw a
Door man enter and put down his mol,