The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-09-23

slaughter.
Now, what has become of the slaugh-
tered? Well, some of them are in their
fathers or mothers house, broken
down in health, waiting to die; others
are in the hospital, others are IN the
cemetery, or, rather, their bodies are,
for their souls have gone on to retribu-
ton. Not much prospect for young
man who started life with good health,
and good education, and a Christian
example set him, and opportunity of
usefulness, who gathered all his treas
ures and put them in one box, ana
then dropped it into the sea.
Now, how is this wholesale slaughter
to be stopped? There is not person
who is not interested in that question.
The object of my sermon is to put
weapon in each of your hands for your
own defense. Wait not for young mems
Christian associations to protect you,
or churches to protect you. Appealing
| to God for help, take care of yourself
First, have a room somewhere that
you can call your own. Whether 1t be
the back parlor of a fashionable board
ing-house, or a room in the fourth
story of cheap lodging, care rot.
| Only have that one room your fortress.
Let not the dissipater or unclean step
over the threshold. If they come up
the long fight of stairs and knock at
the door, meet them face to face
and kindly yet firmly refuse
them admittance. Have few
family portraits on the wall, ii you
brought them with you from your
country home. Have Bible on the
stand. If you can afford it and can
play one, have an instrument of music
harp, or flute. or cornet, or melo-
deon, or violin, or piano. Every morn
ing before you leave that room pray.
Every night after you come home in
that room pray. Make that room your
Gibraltar, your Sebastopol, your Mount
Zion. Let no bad book or newspaper
come into that room any more than
YOU would allow cobra to coil on
your table.
Take care of yourself. Nobody else
will take care of you. Your help will
not come up two, or three, or four
flights of stairs; your help will come
through the roof, down from Heaven,
from that God who in 5000 years of
the worlds history never betrayed a
young man who tried to be good
and a Christian. Let me say in re-
gard to your adverse worldly circum-
stances, in passing, that you are
on level now with those who
are finally to succeed. Mark my words,
| ,,,1r - hs,f,
years from now. You will find that
those who thirty years from now
are the millionaires of this country,
who are the orators of the country
who are the poets of the country, who
arc the strong merchants of the coun
try, who are the great philanthropists
of the country-mightiest in church
and state-ure this morning on leve,
with you, not an inch above, and you
in Strengthened circumstances now.
All. when | told you to take care o.
yourself, you misunderstood me if yor
thought | meant you are to depend
upon human resolution. which may be
dissolved in the foam of the wine cup
or may be blown out with the first
gust of temptation. Here is the helmet
the sword of the Lord God Almighty
Clothe yourself in that panoply, ant
:, you shall not be put to confusion. Sir
. pays we'll neither in this world nor the
next, but right thinking, and right be
q lieving, and right acting will take YOU
y in safety through this life and in trans
, port through the next.
! Issshall never forget a prayer | heare
+ a young man make some 10 years ago
+ 1t was very short prayer, but was ;
tremendous prayer: "Oh, Lord, he'll
, US. We find it very easy to do wron!
9 and so hard to do right, Lord help us!
| That prayer, l warrant you, reache,
the ear of God, and reached His hear t
f And there are a hundred men VIII
have found out-a thousand voun;
! men, perhaps who have found out tina
very thing. 1t is SO very easy to d
9 wrong, and SO hard to do right. l go
I a letter one day, only one paragraph
, which shall read:
Having moved around somewhat,
G have run across many young men of il
n telligence. ardent strivers after tina
l. Observation-Disclosures of on
f of these l would speak. He was
O young Englishman of % or "a year:
# who came to New York, wher
d he had no acquaintances wit
/. barely sufficient to keep him
h couple of weeks. He had bee
d tenderly reared, perhaps l should sa
is too tenderly, and was not used t
u earning his living, and found it e,
e tremely difficult to get any positio
n that he was capable of filling. Afte
e many vain efforts in this direction h
is found himself on Sunday evening
d Brooklyn near your church with abor
% S. left of his small capital. Provident
I, seemed to lead him to your door, an
ID he determined to go in and hear you.
70 'He told me his going to hear yo
4. that night was undoubtedly the turl
to ing point in his life, for when he wer
N into your church he felt desperate, b,
ID while listening to your discourse h
v. better nature got the mastery. l tru1
rs believe from what this young ma
is told me that your sounding the deptl
lg of his heart that night alone brougl