The Bossier banner., 1894-03-22


For God in His words to Job calls me
to look at the path of foam in the wake
of that ship, and tell you it is all
a-gleam with splendors of kindness
done. and rolling with illumined tears
that were wiped away, and adash with
congratulations, and clear out to the
horizon in all directions is the spark
ling, flashing, billowing phosphores-
cence of Christian life. "He maketh
a path to shine after him"
Have you any arithmetic capable OF
estimating the influence of our good
and gracious friend who few days ago
went up to rest-George w. Childs, of
Philadelphia? From newspaper that
was printed for thirty years without
one word of defamation or scurrility
or scandal, and putting chief emphasis
on virtue and charity and clean in
telligence, he reaped fortune for
himself and then distributed vast
amount of it among the poor and
struggling,.putting his invalid and aged
reporters on pensions, until his name
stands everywhere for large-hearted-
ness and sympathy and help and high
est style of Christian gentleman. In
an era which had in the chairs of its
| Journalism a Horace Greeley, and a
Henry j. Raymond, and aOJames Cor
don Bennett, and Erastus Brooks, and
a George William Curtis, and an
Iren9us Prime, none of them will be
longer remem bered than George w.
Childs. Staying away from the unveil-
ing of the monument he reared at
large expense in our Greenwood in
memory of Prof. Proctor, the astron-
omer, lest l should say something in
praise of the man who had paid for the
monument. BY all acknowledged a
representative of the highest American
journalism. If you would calculate his
influence for good you must count how
many sheets of his newspapers have
been published in the last quarter of a
century, and how many people have
read them, and the effect not only
upon those readers, but upon all whom
they shall influence for all time,
while you add to all that the work
of the churches he helped build, and
of the institutions of mercy he helped
found. Better give up before you start
the measuring of the phosphorescence
in the wake of that ship of the celes-
| tial line. Who can tell the post-mor
tenn influence of a Savonarola, Win
klereid, Gutenberg, Marlborough,
a Decatur, Toussaint. Bolivar, a
Clarkson, Robert Raikes, Harlem
Page, who had one hundred and twen-
ty-fve Sabbath scholars, eighty-four
of whom became Christians and six of
them ministers of the Gospel.
Make one person happy every day,
and do that for twenty years and you
will have made seven thousand three
hundred happy. You know a man who
has lost all his property by an unfor-
tunate investment, or by putting his
name on the back of friends note?
After you have taken a brief nap,
which every man and woman is en-
titled to on a Sunday afternoon, go
and cheer up that man. You can, if
God helps you, say something that
will do him good after both of you
have been dead a thousand years.
Shine! You know of family with
bad boy who has run away from home.
Go before night and tell that father
and mother the parable of the prodigal
son, and tnat some of the illustrious
and useful men now in church and state
had a silly passage in their lives and
ran away from home. Shine!
You know of family that has
lost a child, and the silence of
the nursery glooms the whole
house from cellar to garret. Go before
night and tell them how much that
child has happily escaped, since the
most prosperous life on earth is
struggle. Shine! You know of some
invalid who is dying for lack of an ap-
petite. She can not get well because
she can not eat Broil chicken and
take it to her before night, and cheat
her poor appetite into keen relish.
Shine! You know of some one who likes
you, and you like him, and he ought
to be Christian. Go tell him what
religion has done for you, and ask
him if you can pray for him. Shine!
Oh, for disposition so charged with
sweetness and light that we can not
help but shine! Remember if YOU can
not be a leyiathan lashing the ocean
into fury, you can be one of the phos-
phori, doing your part toward making
a path of phosphorescence.
Then l will tell you what impression
you will leave when you pass through
this life and after you are gone. will
tell you to your face, and not leave it
to the minister who officiates at your
obsequies. The failure in all eulogium
of the departed is that they can
not hear it. All hear it except
the one most interested. This,
in substance, is what 1 or some
one else will say of you on such an
occasion: "We gather for offices of re-
spect to this departed one. 1t is i'm
possible TO tell how many tears he
wiped away; how many burdens he
lifted; or how many souls he was un-
der God instrumental in saving. His
influence will never cease. We are all
better for having known him. That
pillow of flowers on the caslet was
presented by his Sabbath-school
class, all of whom he brought
to Christ. That cross of flowers at the
head was praSn tod hv tho or,>l,o, 49,