The Bossier banner., 1892-02-18

came to town l have read great
deal, and l have found that there
are great many things in the Bible
than are ridiculous. Now, for in
stance, all that about the serpent being
cursed to crawl in the garden of Eden
because it had tempted our first par.
ents; why, you see how absurd it is;
you can tell from the very organization
of the serpent that it had to crawl; it
crawled before it was cursed just as
well as it crawled afterwards; you can
tell from its organization that it
crawled. Then, all that story about
the whale swallowing Jonah, or Jonah
swallowing the whale, which was it?
1t don't make any difference, the thing
is absurd; it is ridiculous to suppose
that a man could have gone down
through the jaws of sea monster and
yet kept his life; why, his respiration
would have been hindered; he would
have been digested; the gastric juice
would have dissolved the fibrine and
coagulated albumen, and Jonah would
have been changed from prophet into
chyle. Then all that story about the
miraculous conception-why, it is per-
fectly disgraceful. o! sir, | believe in
the light of nature. This is the nine
teenth century. Progress, sir. progress.
don't blame you, but after you have
been in town as long as l have, you
will think just as l do"
Thousands of young men are going
down under that process day by day,
and there is only here and there a
young man who can endure this artil-
lery of scorn. They are giving up their
Bibles. The light of nature! They
have the light of nature in China! they
have it in Hindostan; they have it in
Ceylon. Flowers there, stars there, wa
ters there, winds there, but no civiliza-
tIon, no homes, no happiness. Lancets
to cut, and juggernauts to fall under
and hooks to swing on; but no happi-
ness. tell you, my young brother, we
have to choose between four or FIVE,
Shall it be the Koran of the Mohamme-
dan, or the Shasta of the Hindoo, or
the Zendavista of the Persian, or the
Confucius writings of the Chinese, or
the Holy Scriptures? Take what you
will; God helping me, I will take the
Bible. Light for all darkness, rock
for all foundation, balm for all
wounds. A glory that lifts it's pillars of
fire oyer the wilderness march. Do not
give up your Bibles. If these people
scoff at you as though religion and the
Bible were fit only for weak minded
people, you just tell them you are not
ashamed to be in the company of Burke
the statesman, and Raphael the painter,
and Thorwaldsen the sculptor, and
Mozart the musician, and Blackstone
the lawyer, and Bacon the philosopher,
and Harvey the physician, and John
Milton the poet. Ask them what in
fidelity had ever done to lift the four
teen hundred billions of the race out
ity ever instituted sanitary commits
sion; and, before you leave their So
ciety once and forever, tell them that
they have insulted the memory of your
Christian father, and spit upon the
deathbed of you mother, and with
| swine's snout rooted up the grave of
your sister who died believing in the
Lord Jesus
Young man, hold on to your Bible
1t is the best book you ever owned. 1t
will tell you how to dress, how to bar
gain, how to walk, how to act, how to
live, how to die. Glorious Bible!
whether on parchment or paper, in
octave or duodecimo, on the center
table of the drawing room or in
the counting room of the banker.
Glorious Bible! Light to our feet and
lamp to our path. Hold on to it.
The second class of insidious tempta-
tions that comes upon our young men
is led on by the dishonest employer.
Every commercial establishment is a
school. In nine cases out of ten the
principles of the employer become the
principles of the employe. | ask the
older merchants to bear me out in these
statements. If, when you were just
starting in life, in commercial life, you
were told that honesty was not market
able; that though you might sell all the
goods in the shop. you must not sell
your conscience; that while YOU were
to exercise all industry and tact, you
were not to sell your rconscience-if you
were taught that gains gotten by sin
we're combustible, and at ,the MON cnt
of ignition would be clown on bv the
breath of God until all the splendid
estate would vanish into white ashes
scattered in the whnlwind-t,leut that
instruction has been to you precaution
and help ever since. There are hun
dreds of commercial establishments
in our great cities which are educating
a class of young men who will be the
honor of the land. and there are other
establishments which are educating
young men to be nothing but sharpers.
What chance is there for young man
who was taught in an establishment
that it is right to lie. if it is smart, and
that French label is all that is neces-
sary to make thing French, aid that
you ought always to be honest when it
pays, and that il is wrong TO steal un-
less you do it well? Suppose, now, a
young man just starting in life enters
place of that kind where there are
ten young men, all drilled in the in
famous practices of the establishments,
lie is ready to be taught.
The young man has no theory of
commercial ethics Wbara - bo 80 rrot