The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-02-04
the good He will keep. Another pic

the good He will keep. Another pic
ure:
| God, our Mother, wanted to set forth
the duty of neighborly love, and it is
done by a picture. A heap Of wounds
on the road to Jericho. A traveller has
| been fighting a robber. The robber
! stabbed him and knocked him down.
Two ministers come along. They look
at the poor fellow, but do not help him.
A traveller comes along-a Samaritan.
He says: Whoa" to the beast he is rid
ing. and dismounts. He examines the
wounds; he takes out some wine, and
with it washes the wounds, and then
he takes some oil, and puts that in to
make the wound stop smarting; and
then he tears off piece of his own gar
ment for a bandage. Then he helps
| the wounded man upon the beast, and
walks by the side. holding him on I'M
til they come to tavern. He says to
the landlord: Here is money to pay
| the mans board for two days; take care
of him; if it costs anything more,
charge it to me, and / will pay it.
Picture-The Good Samaritan, or Who
is Your Neighbor?
Iremarl again, that God has moth
er's favoritism. A father sometimes
shows sort of favoritism Here is a
boy-strong, we'll, of high forehead and
quick intellect The father says: 81
will take that boy into my firm yet;"
or, II will give him the very best posi-
BILE education" There are instances
| where, for the culture of one boy, all
! the others have been robbed. A sad
| favoritism; but that is not the mothers
favorite. / will tell you her favoritc.
There is child who at two years of
age had a fall. He has never got over
it. The scarlet fever muffled his hear
ing. He is not WHIT he once was That
child has caused the mother more
anxious nights than all the other chill
dren. II he coughs in the night, she
springs out of sound sleep and goes
to him. The last thing she does when
going out OF the house is to give q
charge in regard to him. The first
| thing on coming in is to ask in regard
to him. Why, the children of the
family all know that he is the favor
lite, and say: Mother, you let him
do just as he pleases, and when you
give him great many things which
you do not give us He is your favor
ite." The mother smiles; she knows it
| is so. So he ought to be; for if there
| is anyone in the world that needs SYM
patty more than another, it is an in
valid child, weary on the first mile Of
lifc's journey; carrying an aching head,
! a weak side, an irritated lung. So the
mother ought to make him favorite.
| God, our Mother has favorites.
"Whom the Lord loveth He chaster-
eth" That is, one whom He especially
loves He chasteneth. God loves us all,
| but is there one weak, and sick, and
sore, and wounded, and suffering, and
! faint? that is the one nearest and more
perpetually on the great heart of God.
| Why. il never coughs but our Mother,
| God, hears it. There is no such a
| watcher as God. The best nurse may
be overborne by fatigue and fall asleep
in the chair; but God, our Mother,
after being up year Of nights with a
suffering child. never slumbers nor
| sleeps.
'Oh!" says one, 81 can not under
stand all that about affection" A re-
| finer of silver once explained it to a
Christian lady: II put the silver in the
! fire, and keep refining it and trying
| it till can see my face in it, and then
l take it out" Just so it is that God
till the Divine Image may be seen in
them; they are taken out of the FIRE.
When / see God especially busy in
troubling and trying a Christian,
know that ont of that Christians char
acter there is to come some especial
good. A quarrymau goes down into
the excavation, and with strong-handed
machinery bores into the rock The
rock says: "What do you do that for?"
He puts powder in; he lights a fuse.
There is laundering crash. The rock
says: "Wby, the mountain is going to
pieces" The crowbar is plunged; the
rock is dragged out. After while it is
taken into the artists studio. 1t says:
"Well, now have got to a good, warm,
comfortable place at last" But the
sculptor takes the chisel and NAL
let, and he digs for the eyes,
and cuts for the mouth, and he
bores for the ear, and he rubs it
with sand-paper, until the rock says:
when will this torture be ended?" A
sheet is thrown over it. 1t stands in
darkness. After a while it is taken
out. The covering is removed. 1t
stands in the sunlight, in the presence
of ten thousand applauding people, as
they greet the statute OF the poet, or
the prince. or the conqueror. "Ahw
| says the stone, nov / understand it.
am great deal better off now stand
| ing as a statue of a conqueror than l
would have been down in the quarry"
So God finds man down in the quarry
of ignorance and sin. How to get him
up? He must be bored, and blasted,
and chiseled. and secured, and stand
sometimes IN the darkness.
But after while the mantle of affiic-
ton will fall off, and his soul will be
greeted by the one hundred and forty
four thousand, and the thousands Of
thousands, as more than conqueror.
Oh, my friends, God, our Mother, is
| just as kind in our Affections as in our
properties. God never touches us but
for our good. If field clean and
cultured is better off than barren