The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-06-02

OF all the young men who started life
with $40, 900 capital, how many turned
out well? l do not know half dozen.
The best inheritance a young man
can have is the feeling that he has to
fight his own battle, and that life is
struggle into which he must throw
body, mind and soul, or be disgrace
fully worsted. Where are the burial
places Of the men who started life with
fortune? Some of them in the pot
ter's field; some in the suicides grave.
But few of these men reached 81 years
of age. They drank, they smoked,
they gambled. In them the beast de-
stroyed the man. Some of them
lived long enough to get their for
tunes, and went through them. The
vast majority of them did not live to
get their inheritance. From the gin
shop or house of infamy they were
and in delirium began to pick Off loath-
some reptiles from the embroidered
pillow, and to fight back imaginary
devils. And then they We're laid out
in highly upholstered parlor. the
casket covered with flowers by indul-
gent parents-fowers suggestive of
resurrection with no hope.
AS you sat this morning at your
breakfast table, and looked into the
faces OF your children, perhaps you
said within yourself: ''Poor things!
How wish could start them in life
with a competence. flow have been
disappointed in all my expectations of
what would do for then!' Upon that
scene of pathos l break with paean
of congratulatiol, that by your finan-
cial losses your own prospects for
Heaven, and the prospect for the
Heaven of your children is nightly
improved. You may have lost toy,
but you have won palace.
How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God"
''lt is easier for a camel to go through
a needles eye than for rich man to
enter the kingdom of Heaven" What
does that mean? 1t means that the
grandest, blessing God ever bestowed
upon you was to take your money away
from you. Let me here say, in passing,
do not put much stress on the treas
ures of this world. You can not
take them along with you. At
any rate, you can not take them
more than two Or three miles;
you will have to leave them at the
cemetery. Attila had three collins. So
fond was he OF this life that he decreed
that he should be buried in a coEfin of
gold, and that then that should be in
closed in coffin of silver, and that
should be inclosed in coffin of iron,
and then large amount of treasure
should be thrown in over his body.
And SO he was buried. and the men
who buried him were slain, SO that no
one might know where he was buried,
and no one might there interfere with
his treasures. Oh, men of the world,
who want to take your money with
you, better have three coffins!
Again, l remark, you ought to make
the very best of your bereavement.
The whole tendency is to brood over
these separations, and to give much
time to the handling of momentoes of
the departed, and to make long vista
tions to the cemetery, and to say" ''Oh,
| can never look up again; my hope is
gone; my courage is gone; my religion
is gone; my faith in God is gone! Oh,
the wear and tear and exhaus-
ton of this loneliness!' The most
frequent bereavement is the loss
of children. If your departed child
had lived as long as you have
lived, do you not suppose that he would
have had abou. the same amount of
trouble and trial that You have had?
If you could take choice for your
child between forty years of annoy
ance, loss, veyation, evaporation and
bereavements, and forty years in Heav-
en-, would you take the responsibility
of choosing the former? Would you
snatch away the cup of eternal bliss
and put into that child's hands the cup
of many bereavements? Instead of
the complete safety into which
that child had been lifted would
you like to hold it down to the risks of
this mortal state? Would you like to
keep it out on sea in which there
have been more shipwrecl1s than safe
voyages? Is it not a comfort to you to
know that that child, instead of being
besoiled and flung into the mire Of sin,
is swung clear into the skies? Are not
those children to be Congratulated that
| the point of celestial bliss which you
expect to reach by pilgrimage Of 50
or 60 or 10 years, they reached at a
| flash? If the last 0,0oo children who
had entered Heaven had gone through
the average of human life on earth, are
you sure all those 10000 children would
have finally reached the blissful ter.
minus? Besides that, my friends, you
are to look at this matter as self-de-
nial on your part for their benefit. Ii
your children want to so off in a May.
day party; if your children want to go
on fiowry and musical excursion. you
consent. You might prefer to have
them with you, but their jubilant alb
sence satisfies you Well, your de-
parted children have oaly gone out in
a May-day party, amid fowery ant
musical entertainment. amid joys and
hilarities forever. That ought to quell
some of your grief, the thought of taei1
| riaa