The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-02-09

the cold, sharp winter night, muff1ed
up, on skater you shot over the resoInd-
ing ice of tie pond? Have You forgot.
ten all those good days that the Lord
gave you? Were you never boy? Were
you never girl? Between those times
and this how many mercies the Lord has
bestowed upon you! How mary joys
have breathed up to you from the flow
crs and shone down to you from the
stars, and chanted to you with the voice
Of soaring bird and tumbling cascade
and booming sea and thunders that
with bayonets OF fire charged down the
mountain side! joy! JOY! joy! Ii
there is anyone who has right to the
cnjoyments of the world it is the Chris
tian, for God has given him a lease OF
everything in the promise: 'All are
yours" But have to tell you that a
man who estimates his life on earth by
riere worldly qualification is most un-
wise man. Our life is not to be game
ct chess. 1t is not a dance in lighted
hall, to quick music. 1t is not the frotIl
of an ale pitcher. 1t is not the settings
of wine cup. 1t is not banquet, with
intoxication and roistering. 1t is the
first step on ladder that mounts into
the skies, or the first step on a road
that plunges into horrible abyss.
"How old art thou?" Toward what
destiny are you tending, and low fas:
are you getting on toward it?
Again. l remark that there are man.
who estimate their life on earth, by their
sorrows and misfortunes. Through q
81 eat many of your lives the plowshare
hath gone very deep, turning up ter
rible furrow. You have been betrayed
and misrepresented and set upon anG
slapped of impertinence and pounded
of misfortune. The brightest life mus
have its shadows and the smoothest
path its thorns. On the happiest brool
the hawk pounces. No escape frola
trouble of some kind. While glorious
John Milton was losing his eyesight he
heard that Salmasius was glad of it
While Sheridan's comedy was being en-
acted in Drury Lane theater, London,
his enemy sat growing at it in the
stage box. While Bishop Cooper was
surrounded by the favor of learned men
his wife took his lexicon manuscript,
the result of long life of anxiety and
toll, and threw it into the fire. Misfor-
tune, trial, vexation for almost every
one. Pope, applauded of all the worle:
has stoop in the shoulder that annoys
him so much that be has tunnel dug
so that he may go unobserved from gar
den to grotto and from grotto to gar
den. Cano, the famous Spanish artist,
is disgusted with the crucifix that the
priest holds before him because it is
such poor specimen of sculpture And
SC, sometimes through taste and some
times through learned menace ansi
sometimes through physical distresses
aye. in 10000 ways-troubles come to
harass and annoy.
And yet it is unfair to measure a
mans life by his misfortunes, because
where there is one stalk of nightshade
there are so marigolds and harebells;
where there is one cloud thunder
charged there are hundreds that stray
across the heavens, the glory Of Ian
and sky asleep in their bosom. Be
cause death came and took your child
away, did you Immediately forget all
the five years, or the ten years, CT the Il
years, in which she came every night fol
kiss, all the tones of your heart peal.
ing forth at the sound of her voice or
the soft touch of her hand? Because iu
Sc me financial Euroclydon your fortune
went into the breakers. did you forgei
ell those years in which the luxuries
aud extravagances of life showered on
your path? Alas, that is an unwise
man, an ungrateful man, an unfai1 maL
an unphilosophic man, and, mos, of all,
an un-Christian man, who measures hi:
life on earth by groans and tears and
dyspeptfc fit and abuse and scorn and
terror and neuralgic thrust.
Again, I remark that there are many
people who estimate their life on earth
by the amount of money they have ac-
cumulated. They say: "The year 1866
or 1870, or 1898. was wasted" Why
'Made no money" Now it is all cant
dHu IuS.ICcAIly " tdlh against money !,
as though it had no value. 1t may rep
resent refinement and education and
10000 blessed surroundings. 1t is
the spreading of the table that feeds
the children's hunger. It is the light
ing of the furnace that keeps you
warm. 1t is the making of the bed on
which you rest from care and anxiety
But while all this is SC, he who uses
money or thinks Of money as anything
but means to an end will find out his
mistake when the glittering treasures
slip out of his nerveless grasp and he
goes out of this world without shil-
ling of money or certificate of stock
He might better have been the Chris
tian porter that opened his gate, or the
begrimed workman who last night
heaved the coal into his cellar. Bonds
and mortgages and leases have their
use, but they make Ioor yardstick
with which to measure life. "They
that boast themselves in their wealth
and trust in the multitude of their
riches, none of them can, BY anymeans