The Bossier banner., 1894-07-05

anu exhausted OugnC TO nave some OF
the treasures. Here is robe for a
pale-faced warrior. Here is pillow
for this dying man. Here is a handful
of gold for the wasted trumpeter.
really think that these men who faint
ed by the brook Besor may have en-
dured as much as those men who went
into the battle. Some mean fellows
objected to the sick ones having any of
the spoils. The objectors said: These
men did not fight" David, with mag
unanimous heart, replies: ''As his part
I is that goeth down to the battle, so
shall his part be that tarrieth by the
stuff"
This subject is practically suggestive
to me. Thank God, in these times a
man can go off on a journey, and be
gone weeks and months, and come
back and see his house untouched of
incendiary, and have his family on the
step to greet him if by telegram he has
fortold the moment of his coming. But
there are Amalekitish disasters, there
are Amalekitish diseases, that some
times come down upon ones home,
making as devastating work as the
day when Zillag took fire. There
are families you represent broken
up. No battering ram smote in
the door, no iconoclast tumbled
the statutes, the flame leaped amidst
the curtains; but so far all the Joy and
merriment that once belonged to that
house are concerned, the home has de-
parted. Armed diseases came down
upon the quietness of the scene-scar-
let fevers, or pleurisies, or consump-
tions, or underlined disorders came and
seized upon some members of that
family, and carried them away Ziklag
in ashes! And you go about, some
times weeping and sometimes enraged
wanting to get back your loved ones as
much as David and his men wanted to
reconstruct their despoiled households.
Ziklag in ashes! Some of you went off
from home. You counted the days of
your absence. Every day seemed as long
| as week. Oh, how glad you were when
the time came for you to go aboard the
steamboat or rail car and start for
home! You arrived. You went up the
street where your dwelling was, and in
the night you put your hand on the
| door-bell, and, behold! it was wrapped
with the signal of bereavement, and
you find that Amalekitish Death, which
has devastated a thousand other house
holds, had blasted yours. You go
about weeping amidst the desolation
of your once happy home, thinking of
the bright eyes closed, and the noble
hearts stopped, and the gentle hands
| folded, and you weep until you have no
more power to weep. Ziklag in ashes!
Why these long shadows of bereave-
ment across this audience? Why is it
that in almost every assemblage black
is the predominant color of the apparel?
Is it because you do not like saffron or
brown or violet? Oh no! You say,
''This world is not so bright to us as
once it was;;" and there is story of
silent voices, and of still feet, and of
| loved ones gone, and when you look
over the hills, expecting only beauty
and loyeliness, you find only devasta-
tion and woe. Zilzlag in ashes!
One day, in Ulster county, N. Y, the
village church was decorated until the
| fragrance of the flowers was almost be-
wildering. The maidens of the village
had emptied the place of flowers upon
one marriage altar. One of their own
| number was affianced to minister of
| Christ, who had come to take her to his
own home. With hands joined, amidst
a congratulatory audience, the VOWS
were taken. In three days from that
time one of those who stood at the
altar exchanged earth for Heaven. The
wedding march broke down into the
funeral dirge. There were not enough
| flowers now for the coffin-lid, because
they had all been taken for the bridal
hour. The dead minister of Christ is
| brought to another village.
He had gone out from them less than
a week before in his strength; now he
comes home lifeless. The whole church
| bewailed him. The solemn process
sion moved around to look upon
the still face that once had beamed
the messages of salvation. Little
children were lifted up to look at him
And some of those whom he had com
fronted in days of sorrow, when they
passed that silent form, made the place
dreadful with their weeping. Another
village emptied of it's fowers-some O
them put in the shape of cross to sym
bolize his hope, others put in the shapt
of crown to symbolic his trump. A
hundred lights blown out in one strong
| gust from the open door of a sepulcher
Ziklag in ashes.
l remark, in the first place, if yol
want to join your loved ones in glory
you must travel the same way they
went. No sooner had the half-deaC
| Egyptian been resuscitated than hi
pointed the way the captors and th'
captives had gone, and David and hi
men followed after. So our Christian
friends have gone into another country
and if we want to reach their compan
ionship we must take the same road
They repented; we must repent. The,
prayed; we must pray. They truste'
in Christ; we must trust in Christ
They lived religious life; W
must live religious life. They wer
in some things like ourselves. know
now that they are gone, there is
halo around their names; but they ha
i