The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-02-11
an awful centrifugal Of sin seeming to p

s"ett bOuHuS, DuJ never al OutCTy VI
distress or an echo of agony. At
that one groan the Prince rose from
all the blissful cumjacence, and
started for the outer gate and descend
ed into the night of this world. Out of
what bright harbor int what rough
sea! Stay with u.s." cried angel after
angel, and potentate after potentate.
No" said the prince, II can not stay;
must be off for that wreck of world.
l must stop that groan. l must hush
that distress. l must fathom that
abyss. must redeem those nations.
Farewell, thrones and temples, hosts
cherubic. seraphic, archangelicl l
will come back again. carrying on my
shoulder a ransomed world. Till this
| is done l choose earthly scott to Heav-
emily reclamation, and cattle pen to
a kings palace, frigid zone of earth to
atmos phere of celestial radiance. l
have no time to lose, for bark We to
the groan that grows mi htier while
wait! Farewell! FAREWELL "Yeknow
the grace Of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He was rich, yet for your
sakes He becomes poor"
| Was there ever contrast SO over
towering as that between the noon
day of Christ's celestial departure and
the midnight of His earthly arrival?
Sure enough, the angels were out that
! night in the sky, and an especial me-
| teor acted as escort, but all that was
| from other worlds, and not from this
| world. The earth made no demonstra-
| ton of welcome. If one of the great
| princes of this world steps out at de-
pot, cheers resound, and the bands
play, ana the flags wave But for the
arrival O this missionary prince of
the skies not q torch flared, not q
| trumpet blew, not plume futtered.
All the music and the pomp were
| overhead. Our world opened for Him
nothing better than a barn door. The
| rajah of Cashmere sent to Queen Vic
toria bedstead Of carved gold and a
canopy that cost $4,000, but the
world had for the Prince of Heaven
and earth only litter of straw. The
crown jewels in the tower of London
amount to $4,000, 600, but this mem Der
of eternal royalty had nowhere to lay
| His head. To know how poor He was,
ask the camel driver, ask the shep-
herds, ask Mary, ask the three wise men
OF the east, who afterward came to
Bethlehem. To know how poor HI was,
| examine all the records of real estate
in all that oriental country, and see
what vineyard, or what field He owned.
| Not one. OF what mortgage was He
| = l~o, - L
He the landlord? OF what lease was
He the lessee? Who ever paid Him
rent? Not owning the boat on
which He sailed, or the beast on which
He rode, or the pillow on which He
slept. He had so little estate that in
order to pay HIS tax He had to per-
form miracle, putting the amount of
the assessment in fsh's mouth and
having it hauled ashore. And after
His death the world rushed in to take
an inventory of His goods, and the en-
tire aggregate was the garments He
had worn, sleeping in them by night
and travelling in them by day, bearing
on them the dust of the highway and
the saturation of the sea. St. Paul In
my text hit the mark when he said of
the missionary Prince: For your sake
He became poor"
The world could have treated Him
better if it had chosen. 1t had all the
means for making His earthly condi-
tions comfortable. Only a few years
before when Pompey, the general, ar
rived in Brindisi he was greeted with
arches and a costly column which Gel
ebrated the $4,000, 900 people whom he
had killed or conquered and he was al
lowed to wear his triumphal robe in
the senate. The world had applause
for imperial butchers. but buffetinp
for the Prince of Peace. Plenty of
golden chalices for the favored to
drink out OF, but our Prince must put
His lips to the bucket of the well by
the roadside after He had begged for a
drink? Born in another mans barn,
and eating at another mans table,
and cruising the lake in another man s
fishing smack, and buried in another
mans tomb. Four inspired authors
wrote His blogra Apply, and innumera BILE
lives of Christ have been published,
but He composed His autobiography
in most compressed way. He said,
II have trodden the wine press alone. y
Poor in the estim alton of nearly all
the prosperous classes. They called
him Sabbath breaker, wine bibber,
traitor, blasphemer, and ransacked
the dictionary of opprobrum from
cover to cover to express their detesta,
ton. l can think now of only two
well-to-do men who espoused his
cause-Nicodemus and Joseph OF
Arimathea. His friends for the mos,
part were people who, in that climate
where ophthalmia or Inflammation OF
the eyeball sweeps ever and anon as a
scourge, had become blind, sick
people who were anxious to ge,
well, and troubled people in whose
family there was some one dead OF
dying. II He had purse at all II
was empty, or we would have heard
what the soldiers did with the con
tents. Poor? The pigeon in the dove
cote, the rabbit in its burrow, the
: silkworm in its cocoon, the bee in it.
hive, is better provided for, better off
better sheltered. Aye, the brute ere
alton has a home ON earth, which