The Bossier banner., 1893-11-02

1neTe 8 Feggy, goes Sellln 1fulJ every
night in those cellars in Water street,
| and they're hells, sir. She's learning
| all sorts of bad words there, and don't
get back till twelve o'clock at night.
| If it wasn't for her earnin' shillin' or
two in them places, l should starve.
Oh, wish they was out of the city.
| Yes, it is the truth; would rather have
all my children dead than on the
street, but I can't help it" Another
| one OF those poor women, found by
reformatory association, recited her
story Of want and woe, and looked up
| and said: 81 felt SO hard to lose the
| children when they died, but now I'm
glad they're gone" Ask any one OF
thousand such children on the streets
where do you live?" and they will
answer: 81 don't live nowhere" They
| will sleep tonight in ash-barrels, or
under outdoor stairs, or on the wharf,
kicked and bruised and hungry. Who
cares for them? Once in awhile city
missionary or tract distributor
or teacher of ragged schools
| will rescue one of them, but for
most people they are only weeds.
Yet, Jonah did no more completely
misrepresent the Red Alga about
his head in the Mediterranean than
most people misjudge these poor and
forlorn and dying children of the street.
They are not weeds. They are immor-
tai flowers. Down in the deep sea Of
woe, but flowers. When society and
the church of God come to appreciate
their eternal value there will be more
c. L. Braces and more Van Meters and
more angels of mercy spending their
| fortunes and their lives in the rescue.
Hear it, oh, we philanthropic and Chris
tian and merciful souls; not weeds but
flowers. adjure you as the friends of
all newsboys' lodging houses, of
all industrial schools, of all homes
for friendless girls, and for the
many reformatories and humane
much have they already accom-
| plished? Out of what wretchedness,
into what good home. Of twenty-one
thousand of these picked up out of the
street and sent into country homes,
| only twelve children turned out badly.
In the last thirty years number that
no man can number of the vagrants
have been lifted into respectability
| and usefulness and q Christian
life. Many of them have homes
of their own. Though ragged
the head of prosperous families, hon
ored on earth and to be glorious in
| Heaven. Some of them have been gov
ernors of states. Some of them are
ministers of the Gospel. In all depart
ments of life those who were thought
to be weeds have turned out
to b, flowers. One of these res
cued lads from the streets wrote
to another, saying: 81 have heard
you are studying for the minis
try; so am l." My hearers, 1 implead
you for the newsboys of the streets,
many of them the brightest children of
the city, but no chance. Do not step
on their bare feet. Do not, when
they steal ride, cut behind. When
the paper is three cents once in
awhile give them five cent piece, and
tell them to keep the change. l like
the ring of the letter the newsboy sent
back from Indiana, where he had been
sent to a good home, to New York
newsboys' lodging house: 'Boys, we
should show ourselves that we are no
fools, that we can become as respecta-
BILE as any of the countrymen, for
Franklin and Webster and Clay
were poor boys once, and even
George Law and Vanderbilt and
Astor. And now, boys, stand up and let
them see you has got the real stuff in
you. Come out here and make respect
able and honorable men, so they can
say: There, that boy was once a news
boy" My hearers, join the Christian
philanthropists who are changing or
gan-grinders and bootblacks and news
boys and street Arabs and cigar girls
into those who shall be kings and
queens unto God forever. 1t is high
time that Jonah finds out that that
which is about him is not weeds but
flowers.
And if the unintelligent creatures of
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic
ocean He surrounds with such beauti-
full grasses of the deep what Heaven
we may expect for our uplifted and
| TduSOu1tu SOu1S Wu6u we dES
of the flesh and rise to realms beatific
OF the fora of that "sea of
glass mingled with fire" I have
no power to speak, but l shall
always be glad that when the prophet
of the text, flung over the gunwales
of the Mediterranean ship descended
into the boiling sea, that which he sup
posed to be weeds wrapped about his
head were not weeds but flowers. And
am 1 not right in this glance at the
botany of the Bible in adding to
Luke's mint, anise and cummin, and
Matthew's tares, and Johns vine,
and Solomon's cluster of campfire,
and Jeremiah's balm, and Jobs bull
rush, and Isaiah's terebinth, and
Hosea's thistle, and Ezekiels cedar,
and the hyssop that springeth out of
the wall" and the "Rose of Sharon
and the Lily of the Valley" and the
frankincense and myrrh and cassia
which the astrologers brought to
the manger, at least one stalk
| Of tho A1raa of the Ma5i+orra