The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-07-08

the outrage by life consecrated to
the good and useful You may erase
the curse from the name If it once
stood for meanness, you can make it
stand for generosity. If once it stood for
pride, you can make it stand for hui
mIllty. If it once stood for fraud, you
can make it stand for honesty. If once
it stood for wickedness, you can make
1t stand for purity. There have been
multitudes of instances where men
and women have magnifcently con-
qucred the disasters of the name in.
hicted upon them.
Again, many people labor under the
mis- FOrtune of incomplete physical
equipment We are by our Creator so
economically built that we can not af-
ford the obliteration of any physical
faculty. We want our two eyes, our
two ears. our two hands, our two feet
our eight fingers and two thumbs Yet
what multitudes of people have but
one eye or but one foot! The ordinary
casualties of life have been quadrupled,
quintupled, sextupled, aye, centupled,
in our time by the civil war, and at the
north and south great multitude are
fighting the great battle of life with
half or less than half the needed phys
i icll armament. | do not wonder at
j the pathos of soldier during the war,
who, when told that he must have his
hand amputated, said, doctor, can't
you save it?' and when told that it
was impos ,ible, said, with tears roll
! ing down his cheeks: "Well, then,
good by, old hand. l hate to part with
you. You have done me good se,-
vice tor many years, but it seems you
must go Goodbv.'
A celebrated surgeon told me of a
! scene in the clinical department of
one of the New York hospitals
when a poor man with a wounded leg
was brought in before the students to
be operated on. The surgeon was
pointing out this and that to the STU
dents and handling the wounded leg,
and was about to proceed to amputa-
ton when the poor man leaped from
the table and hobbled to the door and
said, "Gentlencn, | am sorry to disap-
point you, but by the help of God |
will die with my leg on What ter
rife loss is the loss of our physical fac
ulties!'
The way the battle of Crecy was de-
cided against France was by the
Welshmen killing the French horses,
and that brought their riders to the
ground. And when you cripple this
body, which is merely the animal on
which the soul rides you may some
times defeat the soul
Yet how many suffer from this phys
ical taking off. Good cheer, my broth
er. God will make it up to you some
how. The grace, the sympathy of God,
will be more to you than anything you
have lost. Ii Gol allows part of your
resources to be cut off in one place, he
will add it on somewhere else As
Augustus, the emperor, took off day
from February, making it the shortest
month in the year and added it to Au
gust the month named after himself
so advantages taken from one part OF
your nature will be added on to anoth
er. But it is amazing how much o. the
worlds work has been done by men 0
subtracted physical organization. s. s
Preston, the great orator Of the south
west, went limping all his life, bu
, there was no foot put down upon any
platform Of his day that resounded Sc
far as his clubfoot Beethoven was Sc
, deaf that he could not hear the crasl
of the orchestra rendering his orator
los. Thomas Carlyle, the dyspeptlc mar
tyr, was given the commission to driv
can't out of the worlds literature. Rev
Thomas Stockton, of Philadelphia
with one lung raised his audienc
nearer Heaven than most ministers cal
raise them with two lungs. In tn
: banks, the insurance companies, tn
commercial establishments, the reform
atory associations, the churches, ther
are tens of thousands of men an
women to-day doubled up with rheu
matism or subject to the neuralgia
or with only fragments of limbs, tn
rest of which they left at Chattanoog
er South Mountain or the Wilderness
and they are worth more to the worlC
and more to the church, and more t
God than those of us who have neve
f so much as had finger joint stiffene
/ by felon.
Put to full use all the faculties tha
remain anu CudTBc oi Oh oppo>ihS SiA
t cumstances with the determination c
: John of Bohemia, who was total
, blind, and yet at a battle cried out, II
! pray and beseech you to lead me SO ia
= into the fight that l may strike on
good blow with this sword of mine!
= Do not think so much of what facu
? ties YOU have lost as of what facult tie
= remain. You have enough left
l make yourself felt in three world:
1 while you help the earth and bal
5 hell and win Heaven. Arise frol
, your discouragements, 0 men an
a women of depleted or crippled phi,
= sical faculties, and see what, by tn
Z special help of God, you can accon
! plish! The skilled horsemen stoo
e around Bucephalus, unable to mour
n or manage him, so wild was the stee'
: But Alexander noticed that the sight {
r his own shadow seemed to disturb tt
r horse So Alexander clutched him b
i the bride and turned his head ava
l. from the shadow and toward the su,
S and the horses agitation was gon
,,o,,rfo1 him and roT