The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-08-03

were SOlnetHiHS exquisite.
They were dream of beauty carved
put of loveliness. They were made OF
hammered gold, stood in a foot of gold |
and had six branches of gold blooming |
all along in six lilies of gold each, and |
lips of gold, from which the candles |
lifted their holy fire. And the best |
houses in any city ought to be the
best built, the best ven-
tilated, the best swept, the best win
dowed and the best chandeliered. Log
cabins may do in neighbodhoods where
most of the people live in log cabins,
but Jet there be palatial churches for
regions where many of the people live
in palaces. Do not have better place
for yourself than for your Lord and
King. Do not live in a parlor and put
your Christ in kitchen.
These seven candlesticks of which l
speak were not made of pewter or iron.
They were golden candfesticks. and
gold is not only valuable, but bright
metal. Have everything about your
church bright-your ushers with smil-
ing faces, your music jubilant, your
handshaking cordial, your entire serv-
ice attractive. Many people feel that
in church they must look dull, in or
der to be reverential, and many whose
faces in other kinds of assemblage show
all the different phases OF emotion have
in church no more expression than the
back wheel of hearse. Brighten up
and be responsive. If you feel like
weeping, weep. If you feel like smil-
ing, smile. If you feel indignant at
some wrong assailed from the pulpit,
frown. Do not leave your naturalness
and resiliency home because it is Sum
day morning. If as officers of church
you meet people at the church door
with black look, and have the music
black and the minister in black preach
a black sermon, and from invocation to
benediction have the impression black,
few will come, and those who do come
will wish they had not come at all.
Golden candlesticks! Scour up the
six lilies on each branch and known that
the more lovely and bright they are the
more fit they are to hold the light. But
Christless light is a damage to the
world rather than good. Cromwell
stabbed his cavalry horses in st. Paurs
cathedral, and many now use the church
in which to stable vanities and worldli-
ness. A worldly church is candlestick
without the candle, and it had its proto-
type in st. Sophia, in Constantinople,
built to the glory of God by Constantine,
but transformed to base uses by Mo-
hammed the second. Built out Of col
ored marble, cupola with "a VIM
dows soaring to height of $50 feet, the
ceiling one great bewilderment of mo-
| sale, galleries supported by eight col
umns of porphyry and 81 columns of
green Jasper, nine bronze doors with
alto relieve work fascinating to the eye
of any artist, vases and vestments in
crusted with all manner of precious
stones. Four walls on fire with inde-
scribable splendor.
| Though labor was cheap, the building
cost 81 100000. Ecclesiastical structure,
almost supernatural in pomp and majes-
ty. But Mohammedanism tore down
from the walls of that building all the
sanity and Christly images, and high
up in the dome the figure of the cross
was rubbed out that the crescent of the
barbarous Turk might be substituted
A great church, but no Christ! A
gorgeous candlestick, but no candle!
Ten thousand such churches would not
give the world as much light as one
homemade tallow candle by which last
night some grandmother in the eighties
put on her spectacles and read thu
Psalms of David in large type. Up will
the churches by all means! Hundred
of them, thousands of them, and tn,
more the better. But let each one be
blaze of heavenly light, making tn
world brighter and brighter, till tn
last shadow has disappeared and tn
last of the suffering children of Go'
shall have reached the land where the.
have no need of candlestick or ''of can
die, neither light of the sun, for tn
Lord God giveth them light, and the,
shall reign forever and ever" Sevel
candlesticks the complete number o
lights! Let your light shine befor
men. that they, seeing your good works
may glorify your Father which is i
Heaven.
Turn now in your Bible to the seve
stars. We are distinctly told that the
are the ministers of religion. Some ar
large stars, some of them small star
some of them sweep wide circuit an
: some of them small circuit, but SO ia
. as they are genuine they get their ligf
from the great central sun aroun
!, whom they make revolution. Let eac
: one keep in his own sphere. The sol,
system would be soon wrecked if Il
stars, instead of keeping their own o
bits, should go to hunting down 9TH
: stars. Ministers of religion shou
never clash. But in all the centuries
/ the Christian church some of the
e stars have been hunting an Edwal
). Irving or a Horace Bushnell or an A
u bert Barnes, and the stars that were
u pursuit of the other stars lost their ov
II orbit, and some of them could ney
v again find it. Alas for the heresy hun
Il ers! The best way to destory error