The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-05-05
NO. 10.

''''i"y ooes NOT lEtend any positive
wrong. He has trust funds. lie risks
part OF these funds in investment.
lie says: 'Now, if l should lose that
Investment l have of my own property
five times as much, and if this invest
ment should go wrong, / could easily
make it up; l could live times make It
up" With that wrong reasoning he
goes on and makes the investment, and
1t does not turn out quite as well as he
expected, and he makes another in
vestment, and, strange to say, at the
same time all his other affairs get en-
tangled, and all his other resourcess
fail, and his hands are tied. Now he
wants to extricate himself. He goes a
little further on in the wrong invest
ment. He takes a plunge further
ahead, for he wants to save his wife
and children; he wants to save his
home; he wants to save his member
ship in the church. He takes one more
plunge, and all is lost.
Some morning at 10 o'clock the bank
door is not opened and there is card
on the door signed by an officer of the
bank, indicating there is trouble, and
the name of the defaulter or the de-
frauder heads the newspaper column,
and hundreds of men say: Good for
him;' hundreds of other men saw: I'm
glad he's found out at last" hundreds
OF other men say: I'VE couldn't possi-
bly, have been tempted to do that--no
conjunction of circumstances could
ever have overthrown me;' and there
is a superabundance of indignation,
but no pity. The heavens full of
lightning, but not one drop of dew. IL
God treated us as society treats that
man we would all have been in hell
long ago.
Wait for the alleviating circum-
stances. Perhaps he may have been
the dupe OF others. Before you let all
the hounds out from their kennel to
maui and tear that man, find out if he
has not been brought up in CONNER.
clal establishment where there was a
wrong system of ethics taught; find out
whether that man has not an extrava-
giant wife who is not satisfied with his
honest earnings, and in the temptation
to please her he has gone into that ruin
into which enough men have fallen.
and by the same temptation, to make
a procession of many miles. Perhaps
some sudden sickness may have touched
his brain, and his judgment may be un-
balanced. He is wrong, he is awfully
wrong, and he must be condemned, but
there may be mitigating circumstances.
Perhaps under the same temptation
you might have fallen. The reason
some men do not steal $500, 900 is be-
cause they do not get chance! Have
righteous Indignation you must about
that mans conduct, but temper it with
mercy.
God let's the man go. God, who had
kept that man under His protecting
care, let's the man go, and try for him
self the majesty of his integrity. God
letting the man go. the powers of dark
ness pounce upon him. l see you some
day in your office in great excitement.
One of two things you can do. BE hon.
est, and be pauperized, and have your
brought home from school,
your family dethroned in social
influence. The other thing is, you
can step q little aside from that
which is right, you can only just go
half an inch out of the proper path, you
can only take little risk, and then
you have all your finances fair and
right. You will have a large property.
You can leave a fortune for your chill
dren, and endow college, build q
public library in your native town.
You halt and wait, and halt and wait
until your lips get white. You decide
to risk it. OVAa few strokes of the
pen now. B~oh, how your hand
The die is cast BY the strang-
est and most awful conjunction of cir
anyone could have imag-
ined, you are Frustrated. Bankruptcy,
annihilation, exposure,
crime. Good men mourn and devils
hold carnival, and you see your own
name at the head of the newspaper
column in whole congress of ex-
points; and while you are
reading the anathema in the reportorial
and editorial paragraph, it occurs to
you how much this story is like that of
the defalcation fifteen years ago, and
a clap Of thunder shakes the window
sill, saying: with what measure We
mete, it shall be measured to you
again"
Oh, my friends, let us be resolved to
scold less and pray more!
. What headway will we make in tho
Judgment if in this world we have beer
hard on those who have gone astray:
What headway will you and make in
the last great judgment, when we must
have mercy OR perish? The Bible says:
They shall have judgment without
mercy that showed no mercy"
/ see the scribes of Heaven looking
up into the face of such a maa, saying:
What! you plead for mercy, you, who
in all your life never had any mercy on
your fellows? Don't you remen ber how
hard you were in your opinions OF those
who were astray? Don't you remember
when you ought to have given help
ing hand you employed hard heel?
Mercy! You must mis-speak yolrs.lf
when you plead for mercy here.
Mercy for others but no mercy for you.
..Took" saw fh, Sarihas of Heaven