The Bossier banner., 1894-09-13
Subscription, S1.OO Year, in Advance.
NUMBER 20.

give 1T, and say they will try you again;
but, falling away again under the
power of temptation, they cast you off
forever. But God forgives seventy
times seven; yea, seven hundred times;
yea; though this be the ten thousandth
time He is more earnest, more sympa-
thetic, more helpful this last time
than when you took your first misstep
The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
burg to Harwich, was sailing on, when
the man on the lookout saw something
that he pronounced a vessel bottom up
There was something on it that looked
like sea gull, but was afterward found
to be waving a handkerchief. In the
small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck, and found that it was cap
sized vessel, and that three men had
been digging their way through the
bottom of the ship. When the vessel
capsized they had no means of es-
cape. The captain took his pen
knife and dug away through
the planks until his knife broke.
Then an old nail was found, with which
they attempted to scrape their way out
of the darkness, each one working un-
til his hand was well nigh paralyzed,
and he sank back faint and sick After
long and tedious work, the light broke
through the bottom of the ship. A
handkerchief was hoisted. Help came.
They were taken on board the vessel
and saved. Did ever men come so near
watery grave without dropping into
it? How narrowly they escaped-es-
capped only with the skin of their
teeth"
In the last days it will be found that
Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and
Huss, and Ridley were not the greatest
martyrs, but Christian men who went
up incorrupt from the contaminations
and perplexities of Wall street, Water
street, Pearl street, Broad street, State
street, Third street, Lombard street
and the bourse. On earth they
were called brokers or stockholders,
or retailers, or importers; but in Heaven,
Christian heroes. No fagots were
heaped about their feet; no inquisition
demanded from them recantation; no
soldier aimed a spike at their heart;
but they had mental tortures, compared
with which all physical consuming is
as the breath of a spring morning.
| find in the community large
class of men who have been so cheated,
so lied about,s so outrageously wronged,
that they have lost faith in every
thing. In world where everything
seems so topsy-turvy they do not see
how there can be any God. They are
confounded and frenzied, and mis-
anthropic Elaborate argument to
prove to them the truth of Christiani-
ty, or the truth of anything else,
touches them nowhere. Hear me, all
such men. 1 preach to you no
rounded periods, no ornamental dis
course; but l put my hand on your
shoulder, and invite you into the peace
of the Gospel Here is a rock on which
you may stand firm, though the waves
dash against it harder than the Allan
tic, pitching its surf clear above Eddy
stone lighthouse. Do not charge
upon God all these troubles of the
world. AS long as the world stuck to
God, God stuck to the world; but the
earth seeded from His government,
and hence all these outrages and all
these woes. God is good. For many
hundreds of years He has been coaxing
the world to come back to Him; but
the more He has coaxed, the more vio-
lent have men been in their resistance,
and they have stepped back and
stepped back until they have dropped
into ruin.
This world is poor portion for your
soul, oh business man! An eastern
king had craven upon his tomb two
fingers, represented as sounding upon
each other with snap, and under
them the motto: ''All is not worth
that" Apicius Coelius hanged him
self because his steward informed
him that he had only eighty thousand
pounds sterling left. All of this
worlds riches make but small
inheritance for soul. Robespierre
attempted to win the applause of the
world; but when he was dying a wom-
an came rushing through the crowd,
saying to him: Murderer of my kim
dred, descend to hell, covered with the
curses of every mother in France"
Many who have expected the plaudits
of the world have died under it's Anath-
ema Maranatha.
Oh, find your peace in God. Make
one strong pull for Heaven. No half
way work will do it. There sometimes
comes time on shipboard when every
thing must be sacrificed to save the
passengers. The cargo is nothing, the
rigging nothing. The captain ruts the
trumpet to his lip and shouts: 'Cut
away the mast :" Some Of you
have been tossed and driven, and you
have in your effort to keep the world,
well nigh lost your soul. Until you
have decided this matter, let every
thing go. Overheard with all those
other anxieties and burdens! You will
have to drop the sails oi your pride and
cut away the mast. With one earnest
cry for help, put your cause into
the hand OF Him who helped Paul
out of the breakers of Melit3, and
who, above the shrill blast Of the
wrathiest tempest that ever blackened
the sky or shook the ocean, can hear
the faintest imploration for mercy.
shall couc1uda fee1iuu that some