The Bossier banner., 1893-11-16
ance ought to brandish their trumpets

and the closing prayer. There
are many people who spend
the first prayer in arranging their ap-
pcrel after entrance, and spend the
second prayer, the long prayer" in
wishing it were through, and spend the
last prayer in preparing to start for
home. The most insignificant part of
every religious service is the sermon.
The most important parts are the
Scripture lesson and the prayer. The
sermon is only man talking to a man.
The Scripture lesson is God talking to
man. Prayer is man talking to God.
Oh, if we understood the grandeur and
the pathos of this exercise of prayer,
instead of being dull exercise, we
would imagine that the room was
full of Divine and angelic appearances.
But, my friends, the old style church
will not do the work. We might as
well now try to take all the passengers
from Albany to Buffalo by canal-boat,
or do all the battling of the world with
bow and arrow, as with the old style OF
church to meet the exigencies of this
day. Unless the church in our day
will adapt itself to the time, it will
become extinct. The people reading
newspapers and books all the week,
in alert, picturesque and resounding
style, will have no patience with
Sabbath humdrum. We have no
objections to bands and surplice,
and all the paraphernalia of cler-
ical life; but these things make no
mpression-make no more impression
- h., 1or
the ordinary business suit that you
wear in Wall street. A tailor can not
make minister. Some of the poorest
preachers wear the best clothes; and
many a backwoodsman has dismounted
from the saddle-bags, and in his linen
duSter preached q sermon that shook
earth and Heaven with it's Christian
elOquence. No new Gospel, only the
old Gospel in way suited to the time.
No new church, but a church to be the
asylum, the inspiration, the practical
sympathy and the eternal help Of the
people.
But while half Of the doors of
the church are to be set open
toward this world, the other half
of the doors of the church must be
set open toward the next. You and l
tarry here only brief space. We
want somebody to teach us how to get
out of this life at the right time and in
the right way. Some fall out of life,
some go stumbling out of life, some go
groaning cut of life, some go cursing
out of life. We want to go singing,
rising, rejoicing, triumphing. We
want half the doors of the church set
in that direction. We want half the
prayers that way, half the sermons that
way. We want to know how to get
ashore from the tumult of this
world into the land of ever
lasting peace. We do not want to
stand doubling and shivering when we
go away from this world; we want our
anticipations aroused to the highest
pitch. We want to have the exhilara-
tion of a dying child in England, the
father telling me the story. When he
said to her, rs the path narrow?" she
answered, ''The path is narrow; it is so
: narrow that can not walk arm in arm
with Christ; so Jesus goes ahead, and
He says, Mary, follow" Through
these church gates set heaven
ward how many of your friends and
mine have gone? The last time they
! were out of the house they came to
church. The earthly pilgrimage ended
at the pillar of public worship, and
then they march out to bigger and
, brighter assemblage. Some of them
, were so old they could not walk with
, out cane or two crutches; now they
have eternal juvencscence. Or they
!, were so young they could not walk ex-
cept as the maternal hand guided
, them; now they bound with the hilari-
ties celestial. The last time we saw
. them they were wasted with malarial
: or pulmonic disorder; but now they
, have no fatigue, and no diff
Guilty of respiration in the pure
:, when you and l will cross over. Some
c of you have had about enough of the
q humping and failing of this life A
p draught from the fountains of Heaven
, would do you good. Complete release
, you could stand very we'll. If you got
! on the other side, and had permission
, to come back, you would not come
p Though you were invited to come back
and join your friends on earth you
+ would say: mo, let me tarry here
until they come; shall not risk going
!, back; if "a man reaches Heaven he had
] better stay there"
v Oh, I join hands with you this morn
: ing in that uplifted splendor.
: When the shore is won at last
Who will count the pillows pastP
: In Freybourg, Switzerland, there Is
, the trunk of a tree four hundred years
! old. That tree was planted to com
| | memorate an event. About ten miles
/ from the city the Swiss conquered the
: Burgundians, and a young man wanted
to take the tidings to the city. He
, took tree branch and ran with such
f speed the ten miles that when he
| reached the city waving the tree
4 branch he had only strength to cry
n 'Victory'' and dropped dead. Ths
+ tree branch that he carried was plant
e ed, and it grew to be a great tree TWEEN
+ ty feet in circumference, and the re