The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-04-08
time. Tell me up what steps It hath


gone, down what decliVities, and In
what roads and In what directions, and
will know more about you than l
want to know. None of US could en-
dure the scrutiny. Our feet not al
ways in paths of God. Sometimes in
paths Of worldliness. Our feet, a
Divine and glorious machinery for use
fulness and work, so often making mis-
steps, so often going in the wrong di-
rection. God knowing every step, the
patriarch saying: Thou settest a
print on the heels of my feet" Crimes
of the hand, crimes of the tongue,
crimes of the eye, crimes of the ear not
worse than crimes of the foot. Oh, we
want the wings of humility to cover
the feet. Ought we not to go into self
abnegation before the all-searching,
disseminating, all-trying eye OF God?
The seraphs do. How much more we?
with twain He covered the feet"
All this talk about the dignity of hu-
man nature is braggadocio and SIN
Our nature started at the hand of God
regal, but it has been pauperized.
There is well in Belgium which once
had very pure water, and it was stoutly
masoned with stone and brick; but that
well afterward became the center OF
the battle of Waterloo. At the open
J ing of the battle the soldiers with their
sabers compelled the gardener, William
Won Kylsom, to draw water out OF the
we'll for them, and 1t was very pure wa
ter. But the battle ragged, and 800
dead and half dead were flung into the
well for quick and easy burial; SO that
the we'll of refreshment became the
we'll of death. and long after, people
looked down into the we'll and they
saw the bleached skulls, but no water.
So the human soul was a well of good,
but the armies of sin have fought
around it, and fought across it and been
slain, and 1t has become well OF skele-
tons. Dead hopes, dead resolutions,
dead opportunities, dead ambitions. An
abandoned well unless Christ shall re-
open and purify and fill it as the well
of Belgium never was. Unclean, un-
| clean.
Another seraphic posture in the text
with twain he covered the face" That
means reverence Godward. Never sc
much irreverence abroad in the world
as to-day. You see it in the defaced
statuary, in the cutting out of figures
from fine paintings, in the fact that mil
itary guard must stand at the graves
of Lincoln and Garfield, and that old
shade trees must be cut down for fire
wood, though so George P. Morrises
beg the woodcutter to spare the tree,
and that calls corpse a cadaver, and
that speaks Of death as going over tc
the majority, and substitutes for the
reverent terms father and mother
1.-The old man. and the ole
woman" and finds nothing i'm
pressive in the ruins of Baalbec Or the
columns of Karnac, and sees no differ
ence in the Sabbath from other days
except it allows more dissipation, anc
reads the Bible in what is called higher
criticism, making it not the Word o:
God, but a good book with some fine
things in it. Irreverence never SO much
abroad. How many take the name O.
God in vain; how many trivial thing!
said about the Almighty. Not willing
to have God in the world, they roll W
an idea of sentimentality and humani
tarianism and impudence and imbecil
ity, and call it God. No wings of rev
erence over the face, no taking off o
shoes on holy ground. You can tel
from the way they talk the,
could have made better world thar
this, and that the God of the Bibl
shocks every sense of propriety. They
talk of the love Of God in a way tina
, shows you they believe it does no
make any difference how bad man i
here, he will come in at the shinin,
gate. They talk of the love of God il
way which shows you they think
/, is a general Jail delivery for all tn
abandoned and the scoundrelly OF tn
, universe. No punishment hereafte
) for any wrong done here.
7 The Bible gives two descriptions @
God, and they are just opposite, an
; they are both true. In one place tn
} Bible says God is love. In anothe
: place the Bible says God Is consum
= ing fire. The explanation is plain a
: plain can be. God through Christ
= love. God out of Christ is fire To wi
l the one and to escape the other w
r have only to throw ourselves body
, mind and soul into Christ's keeI
, ing. NO" says Irreverence, II wan
3 no atonement, l want no pal
l don, l want no Intervention; I wi
1 go up and face God, and will challeng
8 Him, and will defy Him, and will as
j.. Him what He wants to do with me-
r So the finite confronts the infinite, s
a a tack hammer tries to break a thur
: derbolt, SO the breath of human no.
i trils deties the everlasting God, Will
g the hierarches of Heaven bow til
r head and bend the knee as the King
: chariot goes by, and the archang,
r turns away because he can not endur
9 the splendor, and the chorus of all tn
e empires Of Heaven comes in with fu
e diapason, Holy, holy, holy!"
Reverence for sham, reverence fl
# the old merely because it is old, reve
J, ence for stupidity, however learne,
Il reverence for incapacity, however fin
: ly inaugurated, have none But W
want more reverence for God, MOI
a reverence for tina Sanrrap+a mo,