The Bossier banner., 1893-12-21

coaXing and kindness, and self-sacri
flee and all the ordinary prayers that
mothers make for their children and
ali have failed. She is coming toward
| the vivid and uenturesome and terrific
prayer of my text. She is going tc
lift her own eternity and set it upon
that one ''if," by which she expects to
decide whether you will go up with
| her or she down with you.
She may be this moment looking
heavenward, and saying: 80 Lord re-
claim him by Thy grace" and then
adding that heart-rending ''If' of my
text: ''If not, blot me, l pray Thee,
out of Thy book" After three years
of absence son wrote his mother in
one of the New England whaling vii
lagos that he was coming home in a
certain ship. Mother-like, she stood
watching, and the ship was in the off
ing, but a fearful storm struck it and
dashed the ship on the rocks that
night. All that night the mother
prayed for the safety Of the son, and
just at dawn there was knock at the
cottage door, and the son entered, cry
ing: Mother, l knew you would pray
me home!" If / would ask those in
this assemblage who have been prayed
home to God by pious mothers to stand
up, there would be scores that would
stand; and if l should ask them to give
testimony, it would be the testimony
of that New England son comm g
ashore from the split timbers of the
whaling ship: "My mother prayed me
homer
Another Bible 'If' is the eff of in
credulity. Satan useaEit when Christ,
with his vitality depressed by forty
days abstinence from food, the tempt
er pointed to some stones, in color and
shape like loaves of bread, and said:
''If Thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread" That
was appropriate, for Satan is the IA
ther of that ''if'' for incrdulity. Peter
used the same eff when, standing on
the wet and slippery deck of a fishing
smack of Lake Galilee, he saw Christ
walking on the sea as though it were
as solid as pavement of basalt from
the adjoining volcanic hills, and Peter
cried out: IF it be Thou, let me come
to Thee on the water" What q pre-
posterous ''Ifn' What human foot was
ever so constructed as to walk on wa
ter? In what part of the earth did
law of gravitation make exception
to the rule that man will
sink to the elbows when he touches
the wave of the river or lake, and
will sink still further unless he can
swim? But here Peter looks out upon
the form in the shape of man defying
the r,ightest law of the universe, the
law of gravitation, and standing erect
on the top of the liquid. Yet the in
credulous Peter cries out to the Lord:
eff it be Thou" Alas! for that in
credulous IF" 1t is working as
powerfully as in the latter part of this
nineteenth Christian century as it did
in the early part of the first Christian
century. Though small conjunction,
it is the biggest block to-day in the
way of the Gospel chariot. "If!' ''Ifr'
We have theological seminaries which
spend most of their time and employ
teeir learning and their genius in the
manufacturing of IFS" With that
weaponry is assailed the Pentateuch,
and the miracles and the divinity of
Jesus Christ. Almost everybody is
chewing on an "If" When a man
bows for prayer, he puts his knee on
an "If." The door through which peo-
pie pass into infidelity and atheism and
all immortalities has two door-posts,
and the one is made up of the letter
u" and the other of the letter "F."
Any religion will do in time of pros
perity. buddhism will do. Confucian-
ism will do. Theosophy will do. No
religion at all will do. But when the
world gets after you and defames your
best deeds, when bankruptcy takes the
place of large dividends, when you
fold for the last sleep the still hand
over the still heart of your old father
who has been planning for your well
fare all these years, Or yet close the
eyes of your mother who has lived in
your life, ever since before you were
born, removing her spectacles because
she will have clear vision in the home
to which she has gone, or you give
the last kiss to the child re-
clining amid the flowers that
pile the caslxet, and looking as
natural and life-like as she ever
did reclining in the cradle, then the
only religion worth anything is the
old-fashioned of the Gospel Of Jesus
Christ. l would give more in such a
crisis for one of the promises expressed
in half a verse of the old Book
than for whole library containing
all the productions of all the other re-
ligions of the ages. The other reli-
gions are sort of a cocaine to benumb
and deaden the soul while bereavement
and misfortune do their work, but our
religion is inspiration, illumination,
emparadisation. 1t is mixture of
sunlight and hallelujah. Do not adul-
terate it with one drop of the tincture
of incredulity.
Another Bible ''if' is the sif' of
eternal significance. Solomon gives us
that ''if'' twice in one sentence, when
he says: ''If thou be wise, thou shalt
be wise for thyself; but if thou
scornest, thou alone shalt bear it."
Christ gave US that ''if'' when He saws:
"lf thou hadst know in this thy day,