The Bossier banner., 1892-07-21

history of Joseph In the Bibles'' Yes
I said the man, ut is fine story, and as
interesting story as I ever read. !"
''Well, now," said my old friend, ''sup-
| pose that account of Joseph stopped
half way?" ''Oh," said the man, ''then
it would not be entertaining" ''Well
now," said my friend, 1--WE have in this
world only half of everything, and do
| you not think that when we hear the
last half, things may be consistent,
and that then we may find that God
was right?"
| Oh, friends, better load up with few
| interrogation points. You can not af-
| ford to be silent whea God and the
Bible and the things of eternity are as
sailed. Your silence gives consent to
the bombardment of your fathers
| house. You allow slur to be cast on
your mothers dying pillow. In behalf
of the Christ, who for you went through
the agonies of assassination on the
rocky bluff back of Jerusalem, You
dared not face a sickly joke, Better
load up with few questions so that
next time you will be ready. Say TO
the scoffer: 'My dear sir, will you tell
me what makes the difference between
the condition of women in China and.
the United States? What do you think
| OF the sermon on the mount? How do
you like the golden rule laid down in
the Scriptures? Are you in favor of
the ten commandments? In your
| large and extensive reading have
| you come across lovelier
character than Jesus Christ? Will
you please to name the triumphant
death-bed of infidels and atheists? How
do you account for the fact that among
the out-and-out believers in Christiani-
| ty were such persons as Benjamin
Franklin, John Ruskin, Thomas Car
| lyle, Darlington Mccaulay, William
Penn, Walter Scott, Charles Kingsley,
Horace Bushnell, James A. Garfield,
Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Nd
miral Foote, Admiral Farragut, Ulysses
S. Grant, John Milton, William Shake
speare, Chief-Justice Marshall, John
Adams, Daniel Webster, George Wash
ington? How do you account for their
fondness for the Christian religion?
Among the innumerable colleges and
universities of the earth, will you name
me three started by infdels and
now supported by infidels9 Down
in your heart are you really happy in
the position you occupy antagonistic to
the Christian religion?
| But then there are occasions when
this particular spirit that Christ exor-
cised when He said: 81 charge thee to
come out of him." takes people by the
wholesale. In the most responsive re-
| ligious audience have you noticed how
many people never sing at all? They
have book and they have voice and
they know how, to read. They know
many of the tunes, and yet are silent
while the great raptures of music pass
by. Among those who sing not one out
of hundred sings loud enough TO hear
his own voice. They hum 1t. They give
a sort of religious grunt. They make the
lips go, but it is inaudible. With voice
strong enough to stop street car one
block away, all they can afford in the
praise of God is about half whisper.
With enough sopranos, enough altos,
enough bassos to make small
heaven between the four walls they let
the opportunity go by unimproved.
The volume of voice that ascends from
the largest audience that ever assem-
bled ought to be multiplied about two
thousand fold. But the minister rises
and gives out the hymn; the audience
are standing so that the lungs may
have full expansion, and mighty haf-
mony is about to ascend, when the evil
spirit spoken of in my text-the
dumb devil-spreads his two wings,
one over ..the lips Of one-half the
audience and the other wing over the
lips of the other half Of the au-
dience, and the voices roll back in
to the throats from which they started.
and only here and there anything is
heard, and nine-tenths of the holy pow
er is destroyed; and the dumb devil.
as he flies away, says: 81 could not
keep Isaac Watts from writing that
hymn, and I could not keep Lowell
Mason from composing the tune to
which it is set but | smote into silence
or half silence the lips from which il
| 'otlt navy SpISd0 TO DIoSS
neighborhoods and cities, and then
mount the wide-open heavens Give
the long-meter doxology the full sup
port of Christendom, and those four
lines would take the whole earth for
God.
| During the cotton famine in Lam
cashire, England, when the suffering
was something terrific, as the first
wagon load of cotton rolled in. the
starving people unlocked the horses
and drew the load themselves, singing.
until all Lancashire joined in with tri-
umphant voices, their cheeks sopplng
with tears: "Pralse God from whom
all blessings fow." When Commodore
Perry, with his war-ship, the Missis-
sipi, lay off the coast of Japan he.bom-
barded the shores with ''Old Hundred.
played by the marine band. Glorious
"Old Hundred" composed by William
Franc, of Germany. In war prison.
at 10 o'clock at night, the poor fellows.
far from home. and wounded and sick
and dying, one prisoner started the
'Old Hundred Doxology," and then a
score of voices joined, then all the pris-
| oners on all the floors took up the ac-