The Bossier banner., 1894-12-20

", z. Seanland, Editor and Proprietor.
BENTON, LOUISIANA,
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1894
Christmas.

from mfgnGy catnedrai ana numDle
chapel shall swell the songs of praise
proclaiming "Glory to God in the
highest and On earth peace to men
and good will"
We are older by year since the
last Christmas, and it is to be hoped
better, wiser and happier. We have
all felt the frowns of adversity, and
at times have been the fiattered OBJ
jects of the smiles of prosperity
We have sailed during the twelve
months gone by since the Christmas
Of 1893 on rough waters, and often
under fair skies-along the sunny
side of the stream where the wild
flowers grow and the soft wind rustles
amidst the bushes and the reeds
We have met griefs and their twin,
but unlike, companion Pleasures
We have seen sadness and sorrow
and bruised spirits and detection and
imperiled or lost lives, and have
known gayety and frivolity and mirth
and the beauty of love and the de-
lights of realized ambitions. Sorrow
has not walked alone, and neither
has Joy. Deaths have been chron-
icled, but along with them have come
The records of births. The year has
been sufficiently filled with broken
VOWS and the proceedings of the di-
vorce courts, but to the music of
wedding marches, and all burdened
with the aroma of orange blossoms,
happiness has been consummated in
the same old way, and the dull mo-
notony of bachelorhood and maiden
ly loneliness and loveliness have been
climaxed and relieved by the uniting
words and benedictions of the minis
ters.
The records of the various years
do not widely vary. When analysed
and reduced to their component ele-
ments they are alike made up of sor-
row aud of happiness. In those peo-
pie who make up the unfortunate
part of our communities, the sor-
row weighs more heavily than the
happiness. In those whom the world
considers fortunate, happiness is the
outweighing ingredient of their lives.
To these two classes alike Christ
mas is a much loved holiday. It
means to all day in which cares may
be laid aside and the soul and mind
dedicated to the most thorough en-
joyment of all the blessings that lie
in our way, ignoring and shutting
out entirely the trials and vain pur-
suits of the year that has gone and
of the present.
The anniversary of the birth of
the Saviour of all mankind knits the
world into one common brotherhood
of Joy. Throughout the confines of
the globe, whether in the iungles of
far-away Africa, where the solitary
missionary pours out his soul in an
excess of gladness and rapture, or
in the crowded drawing rooms of
more crowded cities, where life
moves ever swiftly onward, looking
backward never, there is one vast,
deep overwhelming sense of glad
some ecstacy. For Christmas day
marks the event of all events in the
history Of the world-the birth of
Christ.
For four thousand years the world
had summoned its thought and ener-
gies and exhausted its wisdom on the
single question, "How shall man be
just with God 2" The star-the
''Star of Bethlehem" as it rested over
the infant in the manger pointed to
that sleeping babe as the solution of
the mighty problem. The smoke of
ths first altar fire kindled on the yet
unpeopled earth, as it curled heaven
ward, was burdened with this ques-
tion. That silent star furnished the
reply. The brilliancy OF shat star