The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-03-30
Easter Sunday.

place for you.-John, xiv, 2.
Next Sunday will be Easter Sun
day. A day in which the whole
Christian world celebrates victory
A day set apart from all other days as
the one on which Death, Heretofore
regarded as invincible, surrendered
without conditions A day in which
Grief has smile of hope on its lips
in spite of the burning tears which
gil it's eyes and in which Bereavement,
standing at the tomb of broken ties,
hears a voice from heaven and dimly
sees the battlements OF an Eternal
City!
It is the season of the year when
the Christians faith stands outagainst
the clouds of night like an illuminat-
ed shaft, and when the agnostic,
however honest he may be, signs to
think that he cannot share in the
general good cheer.
The one looks up from the grave
and loses himself in the anticipated
delights of continued existence; the
other closes the book of human ex-
perience while the word ''inis" re-
verberates through his soul like a
requiem.
The moral value of belief in i'm
mortality is beyond estimate. It is
the mould in which the higher virtues
are cast; the invisible hand which
lifts us across rough places; the bea-
con light on tho far away hilltops
which guides, our frail craft when we
near the dangerous lee shore of old
age; the anchor which never drags in
the tempest, but holds us safe until
the storm is over.
The man who draws aside the cur.
tains of his cottage and sees the stars
when the child or the parent is yield,
ing his life to inexorable law can &c
back to the bedside with commingled
grief and resignation.
The man who lives in q house sc
thickly curtained that he can see
nothing but the pale face and heal
nothing but the cry of pain, who
knows of no beyond and dreams of nc
hereafter, lacks that mysterious some
thing without which all else is dust
and ashes.
eff God did not exist" said Vol
taire, il would be necessary to in
vent Him." Not only good govern
ment but popular progress and do.
nestle happiness are dependent upon
the subtle influences of that belief
Blot out the heavens and the earth
would be o wilderness. Make Us all
atheists and chaos would come back
with redoubled fury. With nothing
to look forward to the present is not
worth having A world with no moral
restraints, no stern commands thun-
dering in the air, no awe-inspiring
menace against the brood of evils
Matched by human sel6shness and
greed, would be world of pirates
and brigands.
The idea of God underlies the the.
o-y Of government in every nation,
however far the people may defect
from it in their daily life. The Church
is a protest against crime, and the
pulpit, feeble voice though it be,
stands for order and law. Burn the
church, and every house would be en-.
dangered by flying sparks from the
oonfagration; close the lips of the
clergy and Justice would flee alright
cd. They represent the profoundest
incentive of, progress, the charities
which adorn our life, the encourage
ment of, virtue. the repression OF
crime.
immortality is the necessary con.
sequence of a belief in God. The two
cannot be separated. If you accept
the one, you cannot reject the other.
Both or neither is the logic of the
situation. With both, you have a
present and future; with neither,
your future disappears, and your