The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1896-06-04

nave not seen him for long while. -
Cross different ferry from the lone where
ask for financial help. When you started
life he spoke good word for you at the
bank. Talk down his credit now that his
fortunes are collapsing. He put his name
on two of your notes. Tell him that you
have changed your mind about such things,
and that you never indorse. After awhile
his matters come to dead halt. and an as
sgnment or suspension Or sheriff sale takes
place. You say: "He ought to have stopped
sooner. Just as 1 expected. He made too
big splash in the world. Glad the balloon
has burst. Ha. ha" Applause when he
went up. sibilant derision when he came
down. Men shall clap their hands at him
and hiss him out of his place." So, high up
amid the crags, the eagle flCtters dust into
the eyes Of the roebuck, which then. with
eyes blinded, goes tumbling over the preci-
pice, the great antler5 crashing on the rocks.
Now, compare some of these goings out Of
life with the departure of men and women
who in the drama Of life take the part that
God assigned them and then went away hon
ored Of men and applauded OF the Lord AL
mighty. 1t is about fifty years ago that in
comparatively small apartment Of the city a
newly married pair set up home The first
guest invited to that residence was the Lord
Jesus Christ. and the Bible given the bride
Vi tLV Jay VI uCl CSpOSudl was TIC Suiuo VI
that household. Days of sunshine were fol-
lowed by days of shadow. Did you ever
know home that for fifty years had no Vi
clssltude? The young woman who left her
fathers house for her young husbands home
started out with parental benedietion and
good advice she will never forget Her
mother said to her the day before the mar
riage. "Now, my child, you are going away
from US. OF course, as long as your father
and I live will fpal hot
to us at any time. But your home will be
elsewhere. From long experience find it
is best to serve God. 1t is very bright with
you now, my child, and you may think y0u
can get along without religion. bur the day
will come when you will want God, and my
advice is, establish a family altar. and If
need be, conduct the worship yourself"
The counsel was taken, and that young wife
consecrated every room in the house to
God.
Years passed on and there were in that
home hlarities, but they were good and
healthful, and sorrows, but they were COM
forted. Marriages as bright as orange bios
SONS could make them. and burrials in
which all hearts were riven. They have
family lot in the cemetery. but all the place
is illuminated with stories of resurrection
and reunion. The children of the household
that lived have grown up. and they are all
Christians, the fathar and mother leading
the way and the children following. What
care the mother took of wardrobe and edu-
cation. character and manners! How hard
she sometimes worked! When the head of
the household was unfortunate in business,
she seWed until her fingers were numb and
bleeding at the tips. And what close calcu-
latiOn of economies. and what ingenuity in
reitting the garments of the elder children
for the younger. and only God kept account
of that mothers sideaches and headaches
and heartaches and the tremulous PRAYERS
by the side of the sick child's cradle and by
the couch of this one fully grown,
The neighbors often noticed how tired
she looked, and old acouaintances
hardly knew her in the street. But
and endured and accomplished all these
years. The children are out in the world
an honor to themselves and their parents.
After awhile the mothers last sickness
comes. Children and grandchildren. sum-
moned from afar, come softly into the room
one by one, for she is too weak to see more
than one at time. She runs her dying
fingers lovingly through their hair and tells
them not to cry, and that she is going now,
but they will meet again in a little while in
a better world, and then kisses them goodby
and says to each. "God bless and keep you,
my dear child" The day of the obseuuieS
comes, and the officiating clergyman tells
the story of wifely and molherly endurance,
and many hearts on earth and in heaven
echo the sentiment, and as she is carried off
the stage of this moral life there are cries
Of Faithful unto death" "She hath done
what she could" while overpowering all the
voices of earth and heaven is the plaudit of
the God who watched her from first to last,
saying, well done, good and faithful SER
want; thou hast been faithful over q few
things. I will make thee ruler over MANY
things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!'
But what became of the father of that
household? He started as a young man in
business and had small income, and having
got little ahead sickness in the family
swept it all away. He went through all the
business panics Of forty years. met many
losses, and suffered many betrayals but
kept right on trusting in God, whether bus
mess was good or poor. setting his children
a good example. and giving them the best of
counsel, and never prayer did he offer for
all those years but they were mentioned in
it. He is old now and realizes it cannot be
long before he must quit all these scenes.
But he is going to leave his children an in
heritance of prayer and Christian principles
which all the defalcations of earth can never
touch, and as he goes out of the world the
church of God blesses him and the poor ring
his doorbell to see if he is any better, and
his grave is surrounded by multi
tuue WHO went on 1901 ana stood
there before the procession OF carriages came
up, and some say, "1here will be no one to
take his place., and others say, "Who will
pity me now?" and others remark, ''Ae shall
be held in everlasting remembrance" And
as the drama of his life closes. all the vocif-
Grafton and braves and encores that ever
shook the amphitheater5 of earthly spectacle
were tame and feeble compared with the
long. loud thunders of approval that shall
break from the cloud Of witnesses in the
piled up gallery of the heavens. Choose We
between the life that shall close by being
Kissed off the stage and the life that shall
close amid accamations supernal an arch
angelic.
On, men and women on the stage OF life
lany of you in the first act Of the drama.
and others in the second. and some Of YOU in
the third, and a few in the fourth, aud here
and there one in the fifth, but all of YOU be-
tween entrance and exit. quote to you as
the peroration Of this sermon the most sug-
gestive passage that Shakespeare ever wrote.
although you never heard it recited. The
author has often been claimed as intidel and
atheistic, so the quotation shall be not only
reIlgiously helpful to ourselves but grandly
vindicatory OF the great dramatist. [ quote
from his last will and testament
''In the name OF God, Amen. I. William
Shakespeare Of Stratfort-upon-Avon, in the
county of Warwick, gentleman, in perfect