The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-09-07
The gates OF death were closed in vain,
The Lord is risen, He lives again.

eXhilaration. We honor the right
hand more than we do the left. If in
accident or battle we must lose one
hand, let it be the left. The left hand
being nearer the heart, we may not
do much of the violent work of life
with that hand without physical dan
ger; but he who has the right arm in
full play has the mightiest of all
earthly weapons. In all ages and in
all languages the right hand is the
symbol of strength and power and
honor. Hiram sat at the right hand of
Solomon. Then we have the term:
HE is right-hand man" Lafayette
was Washington's right-hand man;
Marshal Ney was Napoleon,s right
hand man; and now you have the
meaning of Paul when he speaks of
Christ who is at the right hand of God.
That means He is the guest of
Heaven. He has right to sit there.
The hero of the universe! Count His
wounds, two in the feet, two in the
hands, one in the side-five wounds.
o you have counted wrong These are
not half the wounds. Look at the
severer wounds in the temples; each
thorn an excruciation.
My friends, we must have an adj
vocate. A poor lawyer is worse than
no lawyer at all. We must have one
who is able successfully to present our
cause before God. Where His.e? Who
is He? There is only one Advocate in
all the universe that can plead our
cause in the last Judgment, that can
! plead our cause before God in the great
| tribunal.
Sometimes in earthly courts attor-
neys have specialties, and one man
succeeds better in patent cases, an
other in insurance cases, another in
criminal cases, another in land cases,
another in will cases, and his success
| generally depends upon his sticking
to that speciality. I have to tell you
that Christ can do many things; but it
seems to me that His speciality is to
take the bad case of the sinner and
| plead it before God until he gets etern-
| for our advocate.
But what plea can he make? Some
times an attorney in court will plead
the innocence of the prisoner. That
| would be inappropriate for us; we are
all guilty! guilty! Unclean! unclean!
Christ, our advocate, will not plead our
innocence. Sometimes the attorney in
court tries to prove an alibi He says:
This prisoner was not at the scene;
| he was at some other place at the
time" Such a plea will not do in
our case. The Lord found us in all
our sins, and in the very place of our
iniquity. 1t is impossible to prove an
alibi. Sometimes an attorney will
| plead the insanity of the prisoner, and
say he is irresponsible on that account.
That plea will never do in our case.
We sinned against light, against knowl-
edge, against the dictates of our own
consciences; we knew what we were
doing. What then shall the plea be?
The plea for our eternal deliverance
will be Christ's own martyrdom. He
will say: Look at all these wounds.
BY all these sufferings l demand the
rescue of this man from sin and death
| and hell. Constable, knock off the
shackles-let the prisoner go free"
"Who is He that condemneth? 1t is
Christ that died, yea, rather that is
risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh inter-
cession for u.s."
But why all this gladness on the
faces of these sons and daughters of
the Lord Almighty? l know what you
are thinking of. A Saviour dead, a
Saviour risen, Saviour exalted, a
Saviour interceding. What" say you,
lis all that for me?" ALL All. Never
let me hear you complaining about
anything again. With your pardoned
Sin behind You, and successful Christ
pleading above you, and a glorious
Heaven before you, how can you pc
Respondent about anything?
but, says some man in the audience,
"all that is very good and very true for
those who are inside the Kingdom: but
how about those of us who are outsider"
Then l say: Come into the Kingdom,
come out of the prison house into the
glorious sunlight of Gods mercy and
pardon, and come now.
1t was in the last days of the Reign of
Terror, the year 1898. Hundreds and
ohouoduuS Hdu perlSned under the
French guillotine. France groaned
with the tryannies of Robespierre and
the Jacobin club. The last group Of
sufferers had had their locks shorn bv
Monchotte, the prison barber, so that
the neck might be bare to the keen
knife of the guillotine. The carts
came up to the prison, the
poor wretches were placed in the
carts and driven on toward the scat
fold; but while they were going
toward the scaffold there was an out
cry in the street, and then the shock
of firearms, and then the cry, "Robes-
pierre has fallen! Down with the
Jacobins! Let France be freer' But
the armed soldiers rode in upon these
rescuers, so that the poor wretches in
the carts were taken on 10 the scat
fold, and horribly died But that
very night these monsters of perse-
cution were seized, and Robespierre
persisted under the very guillotine that
he had reared for others, all France