The Bossier banner., 1894-07-26

| in your demands. | have few tickets
yet that | have to use | have a few
engagements that l must keep | want
to stay little longer in the world of
conviviality-a few more outlaws of
unclean laughter, a few more steps on
the road to death, and then, sir, will
listen to what you say. Go thy way
for this time; when | have a convent
ent season | will call for thee"
Another reason why Felix sent Paul
back to the guard room and adjourned
his subject was, he was so very busy.
In ordinary times he found the affairs
of state absorbing, but those were ex-
traordinary times. The whole land
was ripe for insurrection. The Sicarii,
band of assassins, were already
prowllng around the palace, and | sup
pose he thought, Il can't attend to re-
ligion while l am so pressed by affairs
of state" 1t was business. amonu
other things, that ruined his soul, and
L suppose there are thousands of people
who are not children of God because
they have so much business. It is
business in the Store-loSSes. gains.
unfaithful employees. 1t is business
IN your law office-subpenas, writs
you have to write out, papers YOU
have to file, arguments you have to
make. 1t is your medical profession,
with its broken nights, and the ex-
hausted anxieties of life hanging upon
your treatment. 1t is your real estate
office, your business with landlords and
tenants, and the failure of men to meet
their obligations with you, Ay, with
| some of those who are here, it is the
annoyance of the kitchen, and the sit
ting room and the parlor-the wearing
economy of trying to meet large ex-
penses with small income. Ten thou
sand voices of business, business, bust
ness" drown the voice of the eternal
spirit, silencing the voice of the
advancing judgment day, over
coming the voice of eternity; and they
can not hear, they can not listen. They
say: "Go thy way for this time" Some
OF you look upon your goods, look
upon your profession, you look upon
your memOrandumbooEs S, and you see
the demands that are made this very
week upon your time and your patience
and your money; and while | am en-
treating you about your soul, and the
danger of procrastination, you say:
$50 thy way for this time; when I
have convenient season | will call for
thee" On, Felix, why be bothered about
the affairs of this world so much
more than about the affairs of eterni-
fr-O IN,, l., ! 4. II
comes you will have to stop business,
though it be in the most exciting pc
riod of it-between the payment of the
money and the taking of the receipt?
The moment he comes you will have to
go. Death waits for no man, however,
high, however low. VIII you put your
office, viii you put your shop, in com
parison with the affairs of an eternal
world? Affairs that involve thrones,
palaces, dominions eternal? Will you
put two hundred acres of ground
against immensity? VIII you put forty
or fifty years of your life against
millions Of ages? Oh. Felix. You
might better postpone everything else!
For do you not know that the uphol-
stering of Tyrian purple in your palace
will fade, and the marble blocks of
Cesarea viii crumblc, and the break
water at the beach, made of great
block stone sixty feet long, must give
way before the perpetual wash of the
sea; but the redemption that Paul of
fers you will be forever? And vet, and
yet, and yet you wave him back to the
guard room, saying: ''Go thy way for
this time: when l have convenient
season, l will call for thee
Again, Felix adjourned this subject
of religion and put off Paul's argument,
because he could net give up the honors
of the world. He was afraid somehow
he would be compromised himself in
this matter. Remarks he made after
ward showed him to be intensely am
bilious. Oh, how he hugged the favor
of men!
| never saw the honors of this world
in their hollowness and hypocrisy so
much as in the life and death of that
wonderful man, Charles Sumner As
he went toward the place of burial,
even Independence hall, in Philadel-
phia, asked that his remains stop there
on their way to Boston. The flags
were at half-mast, and the minute guns
on Boston Common throbbed after his
heart had ceased to beat. Was it al
ways so? While he lived, how CEN
sured of legislative resolutions, how
caricatured of the pictorials; how
charged with every motive mean and
ridiculous; how all the urns of scorn
and hatred billingsgate emptied upon
his head; how, when struck down in
senate chamber, there were hundreds of
thousands of people who said, Good
for him, served him right!' how he had
to put the ocean between him and his
maligners, that he might have little
peace, and how, when he went of sick,
they said he was broken-hearted be-
cause he could not get to be presi-
dent or secretary of state. Oh, com
monwealth of Massachusetts. who is
that man that sleeps in your public
hall, covered with garlands and
wrapped in the Stars and Stripes? Is
that the man who, only few months
before, you denounced as the foe of re-
publican and democratic institutions?
Is that the same man? Ye American