The Bossier banner., 1893-12-28
has successfully flung his first

| hawk. In the morning of their
life. oh, how they devoured the prey!
But there came a better time to their
soul! They found out that an i'm
mortal nature can not live on bank
stock. They took up a Northern Pa
citic bond, and there was a hole in it
! through which they could look into
| the uncertainty of all earthly treas
ures. They saw some Ralston, living
at the rate of twenty-five thousand
dollars month, leaping from San
Francisco wharf because he could not
continue to live at the same ratio.
They saw the wien and paralytic
bankers who had changed their souls
into molten gold stamped with the
image of the earth, earthly. They saw
| some great souls by avarice turned in
to homunculi, and they said to them
selves: 81 will seek after higher
treasure"
From that time they did not care
whether they walked or rode, if Christ
walked with them; nor whether they
lived in a mansion or in a hut, if they
dwelt under the shadow of the AL
mighty; nor whether they were robed
in French broadcloth or in homesp un,
if they had the robe of the Saviour's
righteousness; nor if they were SAN
daled with morocco or calf skin, if
they were shod with the preparation
of the Gospel. Now you see peace on
their countcnance. Now that man
says: "What a fool l was to be en-
chanted with this world. Why, I
have more salts faction in five minutes
in the service of God than | had in all
the first years of my life while l was
gazing getting. l like this evening of
my day a great deal better than I did
the morning. In the morning l greed
lily devoured the prey; but now it is
evening, and | am gloriously dividing
the spoil
My friends, this world is a poor
thing 20 hunt. 1t is healthful to go
out in the woods and hunt. 1t rekindles
the luster of the eye. 1t strikes the
brown of the autumnal leaf into the
cheek 1t gives to the erheumatic limbs
the strength to leap like a roe. Chris
topher North's pet gun, the muckle-
mould Meg, going off in the summer in
the forests, had its echo in the winter
time in the eloquence that rang
through the university halls of Edin-
burgh. 1t is healthy to go hunting in
the fields; but tell you that it is be-
littling and bedwarfing and belaming
for man to hunt this world. The
hammer comes down on the gun cap,
and the barrel explodes and kills
you instead of that which you are pur-
suing. When you turn out to hunt the
world, the world turns out to hunt
you; and as many a hunter aiming his
gun at a panther's heart has gone
down under the striped claws, so,
while you have been attempting to de-
YOUR this world, the world has been
devouring you. So it was with Lord
Byron. So it was with Catherine of
Russia. Henry II. went out hunting
for this world, and it's lances struck
! through his heart Francis |. aimed
at the world, but the assassin's dagger
put an end to his ambition and his life
with one stroke. Mary queen of Scots
wrote on the window of her castle:
Mishap hath laid me in the dust
The Queen Dowager of Navarro was
offered for her wedding day costly
and beautiful pair of gloves, and she
put them on; but they were poisoned
gloves, and they took her life. Better
bare hand of cold privation than a
warm and poisoned glove of ruinous
success. "Oh," says some young man
in the audience, Il believe what you
are preaching. am going to do that
very thing. In the morning of my life
| am going to devour the prey, and in
the evening | shall divide the spoils of
Christian character. | only want q
little while to sow my wild oats, and
then will be good" Young man, did
you ever take the census of all of the
old people? How many old people are
there in your house? One, two, or none?
How many in a vast assemblage like
this? Only here and there gray head,
like the patches of snow here and
there in the fields on late April dav.
The fact is that the tides of the wears
are SO strong, that men 60 down un-
der them before they get to be sixty,
before they get to be fifty, before they
get to be forty, before they get to be
thirty; and if you, my young brother,
resolve now that you will spend the
morning of your days devouring the
prey, the probability is that you will
never divide the spoils in the evening
hour. He who postpones until old age
the religion of Jesus Christ postpones
1t forever Where are the men who,
thirty years ago, resolved to become
Christians in old age, putting it off a
certain number of years? They never
got to be old. The railroad collision,
or the slip on the ice, or the falling
ladder, or the sudden cold put an end
to their opportunities. They have never
had an opportunity since, and will never
have opportunity again. They locked
the door of Heaven against their souls,
and they threw away their keys. They
chased the world, and they died in the
chase. The wounded tiger turned on
them. They failed to take the game
they pursued. Mounted ON a swift
courser, they leaped the hedge, but the
courser fell on them and crushed them.
PrOnOSIDCr tn ha 1T tbai,.