The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-11-18
NO. 3S.


the barn we came around with the
corn basket and we picked up these
nubbins. They were worth saving,
not worth much. So all around US
there are people who amount to moth
ing. They develop into no kind Of
usefulness. They are nibbled on one
side by the world, and nibbled on the
other side by the devil, and mildewed
all over. Great promise and no fulfill.
ment. All cobs and no corn. Nubbinsl
They are worth saving. l suppose
many OF them will get to Heaven, but
they are not worthy to be mentione.
in the day with those who went
through great tribulation into the
kingdom of our God. VINO would not
rather have the pains of this life, the
misfortunes of this life-who would
not rather be torn, and wounded, and
lacerated, and wrenched. and husked,
and at last go in amid the very best
grain of the granary, than to be pro-
nounced not worth husking at all?
Nubbins! In other words, l want to
say to you people who have distress of
body, and distress in business, and
distress of all sorts, the Lord has not
any grudge against you. 1t is not de-
rogatory, it is complimentary. Whom
the Lord loveth He chasteneth." aud it
is proof positive that there is some
thing valuable in you, or the Lord
would not have husked you.
The husking time was the time of
neighborhood reunion, and so Heaven
will be just that. There they come up!
They slept in the old village church
yard! There they come up! They re-
clined amid the fountains and the
sculpture and the parterres Of city
cemetery. There they come up! They
went down when the ship foundered
off Cape Hatteras. They come up from
all sides-from potter's field and out of
the solid masonry of Westminster
abbey. They come up! They come
up! All the hinderances to their better
nature husked off. All their physical
ailments husked off. All their him
ORANGES to usefulness husked off. The
grain, the golden grain, the God-fash-
ioned grain, visible and conspicuous.
Some of them on earth were such
d:sagreeable Christians you could hard
ly stand in their presence. Now in
Heaven they are SO radiant you hardly
know them. The fact is, all their i'm,
perfections have been husked off
They did not mean on earth to be dis.
agreeable. They meant we'll enough,
but they told you how sick you looked,
and they told you how many hard
things they had heard about you, and
they told you how often they had to
stand up for you in some battles, until
you wished almost that they had been
slain in some of the battles. Good,
pious, consecrated, well-meaning dis
agreeables.
do not know how you are consti.
tuted, but | am so constituted that
there is nothing that so awakens rem;-
niscences in me as the odors of corn.
field when l cross it at this time of
year, after the corn has been cut and
it stands in the shocks. And so have
thought it might be practically useful
for us to-day to cross the cornfeld,
and l have thought perhaps there
might be some reminiscence reused
in our soul that might be salutary
and might be saving. In Swe-
den, a prima donna, while her home in
the city was being repaired, took
house in the country for temporary
residence, and she brought out her
great array of jewels to show friend
who wished to see them. One night,
after displaying these jewels, and
leaving them on the table, and
all her friends had gone, and
the servants had gone - one
summer nigh-she sat tn: mixing
and looking into a mirror just in front
OF her chair, when she saw in that
mirror the face of q robber looking in
at the window behind her and gazing at
those jewels. She was in great fright,
but sat still, and, hardly knowing why
she did so, she began to sing an old
nursery song, her fears making the
pathos of the song more telling.
Suddenly she noticed while looking
at the mirror that the robbers face had
gone from the window, and it did not
come back. A few days after the
prima donna received letter from the
robber, saying: Il heard that the
jewels were to be out that night, and i
came to take them at whatever hazard;
but when heard you sing that nurs
cry song, with which my mother Sc
often sang ME to sleep, could not
stand it, and fed, and have resolved
upon new and an honest life"
Oh! my friends, there are jewels in
peril richer that those which lay upon
that table that night. They are the
jewels of the immortal soul. Would
God that some song rolling up out OF
the deserted nursery Of your childhood,
or some song rolling up out of the corn
fields, the song Of the huskers twenty
or forty years ago, might turn all our
feet out of the paths of sin into the
path Of righteousness. Would God
that those memories waited in on
odor of song might start at this mo-
ment with swift feet toward that
blessed place where so many Of our
loved ones have already preceded US,
''as a shock of corn cometh in in his
season"