The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-12-23


delights of friendship. But he wants
u key to The place of dissolute convoca-
ton. He wants association with some
members of high family as reckless
as he is aff1uent. He wants, instead OF
quiet Sabbath, one of carousal. lie
wants the stimulus of strong drinks.
He wants the permissions of a profit
gate life. The one membership, the
one bad habit, the one carousal robs
him of all the possibilities and innocent
enioyments and noble inspirations Of a
lifetime. BY one mouthful of for
hidden fruit he loses whole orchard
of fruit unforbidden.
You see what an expensive thing is
sin. 1t costs a thousand times more
than it is worth. AS some of all kinds
of quadrupeds and all kinds of winged
creatures passed before our progenitor
that He might announce a name, from
eagle to bat, and from lion to mole, so
| suppose there were in paradise speci-
mems of every kind of fruit tree. And
in that enormous orchard there was
not only enough for the original fam
lily of two, but enough fruit fell ripe
to the ground, and was never picked
up, to supply whole towns and vii
lagos, if they had existed. But the
infatuated couple turned away from
all these other trees and faced this
tree; and fruit of that they will have
though it cost them all paradise.
The story of Eden is rejected 10y
some as an improba biIity, if not an I'M
possibility, but nothing on earth is
easier for me to believe than the truth
of this Edenic storv, for | have seen
the same thing in this year of our
| Lord, 1897. Icould call them by name.
if it were polite and righteous to do
so, the men who have sacrificed para
disc on earth and paradise in Heaven
for one sir. Their house went. Their
library went. Their good name
went Their field of usefulness went
Their health went. Their immor-
tai soul went. My friends! there is
| just one sin that will turn you out of
paradise if you do not quit it. You
know what it is. and God knows. and
you had better drop the hand and arm
lifted toward that bending bough be-
fore you pluck your own ruin. When
Adam stood on tiptoe and took in his
right hand that one round peach, or
apricot. or apple, Satan reached up
and pulled down the round, beautiful
world of our present residence. Over
worked artist, overweight merchant,
ambitious politician, avaricious specu-
lator, better take that warning from
Adams orchard and stop before you
put out for that one thing more.
But turn from Adams orchard to
Solomon's orchard. With his own
hand he writes: II made me gardens
and orchards" Not depending lpon
the natural fall of rain, he irrigated
those orchards. Pieces of the aque-
duct that watered those gardens | have
seen, and the reservoirs are as perfect
as when thousands of years ago the
mason's trowel smoothed the mortar
over their gray surfaces. No orchard
of olden or modern time, probably,
ever had its thirst SO well slahed. The
largest of these reservoirs is 5S2 feet
long, 207 feet wide and 80 feet deep
! These reservoirs Solomon refers tc
when he says: II made me pools Of
) water to water Herewith The
wood that bringeth forth trees.
Solomon used to ride GU
to that orchard before breakfast. /
gave him an appetite and something tx
think about all the day, Josephns, the
, historian, represented him as goin2
out early in the morning from Jeru
) salem to the famed rocks of Etam, {
fertile region, delightful with para
discs and running springs. Thithe
the king, in robes of white, rode in hi
J chariot, escorted by a troop Of mounte,
archers, chosen for their youth ant
statue, and clad in Tyrian purple
whose long hair, powdered with gole
, dust, sparllled in the SUM-" Afte
, in these luxurious orchards he woul,
sit down and write those wonderful
things in the Bible, drawing his illus
: trations from the fruits he had tina
; very morning plucked or riddel
under. And, wishing to praise tn
coming Christ, he says: AS the appl
t tree among the trees of the wood, SO i
my beloved" And wishing to desert b
l tire love of the church for her Lord h
t writes: Comfort me with apples, TO
1 l am sick of love- and desiring t
: make reference to the white hair o
> the octogenarian, and just before hay
s ing noticed that the blossoms of tn
i; almond trees were white, he says O
s the aged man: The almond tree shall
J. flourish" The walnuts and the pome
n granates, and the mandrakes, and tn
f figs make Solomon's writings divine
t ly arranged fruit basket.
But having introduced you to Adam
: orchard and carried you awhil
e through Solomon's orchard, | want t
u take walk with you through PLATE
s orchard Of three trees on hill 20 fee
l. high, ten minutes walk from the gat
y of Jerusalem. After | had read tina
u our great-grandfather and great-granc
e mother had been driven out of tn
!, first orchard, | made up my mind tina
l. the Lord would not be defeated in tina
y way. l said to myself that when the
y had been poisoned by the fruit of tina
a one tree, somewhere, somehow, Their