The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-06-01


queens unto God, to reign forever and
ever. But the work has already been
done. and | could go through this coun-
try and find thousand households
which have by the grace of God and
blessing upon paternal and maternal
excellence become the royal families of
America.
Let young men beware lest they by
their behavior blot such family records
with some misdeed. We can all think
of households the names of which
meant everything honorable and con-
secrated for a long while, but by the
deed of one son sacrificed, disgraced
and blasted. Look out how you rob
your consecrated ancestry of the name
they handed to you unsullied! Better
as trustee to that name add something
worthy. Do something to honor the
old homestead, whether a mountain
cabin or city mansion or country
parsonage.
Rev. David Dudley Field, though 80
years passed upward, is honored to-day
by the Christian life, the service, the
death of his son Stephen.
Among the most absorbing books of
| the Bible is the book of Kings, which
again and again illustrates that though
piety is not hereditary, the style of pa
rentage has much to Go with the style
of descendant. 1t declares of King Abi-
jam: He walked in all the sins of his
father which he had done before him.
and of King Azariah: He did that
which was right in the sight of the
Lord, according to all that his father
Amaziah had DONE" We owe debt to
those who have gone before in our line
as certainly as we have obligations to
those who subsequently appear in the
household. Not SO sacred is your old
fathers walking staff, which you keep
in his memory, or the eyeglasses
through which your mother studied the
Bible in her old age as the name they
bore, the name which you inherited.
Keep it bright, I charge you. Keep it
suggestive of something elevated in
character. Trample not underfoot
that which to your father and mother
wasdearer than life itself. Defend their
graves as they defended your cradle,
Family coat of arms. escutcheons, en-
signs armorial, lion couchant, or lion
rampant, or lion combatant, may at
tract attention, but better than all her.
aldic inscription is a family name which
means from generation to generation
faith in God, self-sacrifice, duty per-
formed, a life well lived and a death
happily died, and a Heaven gloriously
won That was the kind of name that
Justice Field augmented and adorned
and perpetuated-an name honorable al
the close of the eighteentlf@ century
more honored now at the close of the
nineteenth.
Notice also that our iIlustrious friend
was great in reasonable and genial dis
sent. Of the 1,042 opinions he rendered
none was more potent or memorable
than those rendered while he was il
small minority and sometimes in a mi
nority of one. A learned and distin
guished lawyer of this country said h,
Fields dissenting opinions than to b.
the author of the constitution of tn,
United States. The tendency is to g
with the multitude. to think what 9th
ers think, to say and do what others dc
Sometimes the majority are wrong
and it requires heroes to take the mega
tive, but to do that logically and il
; good humor requires some elements o
make up not often found in judicial dis
senters or, indeed, in any class of men
There are so many people in the worl'
/ opposed to everything and who dis
play their opposition in rancorous AM
obnoxious ways that Judge Field wa
and genial and right. Minorities unde
God save the world and save the church
An unthinking and precipitate '.yes
| may be stopped by a righteous and he
roic no The majorities are not al
, ways right. The old Gospel hymn dc
, clares it:
; Numbers are no mark that men will righ
be found:
A few were saved in Noah's ark to man
millions drowned.
The Declaration of American indie
, pendence was a dissenting opinion
, The Free Church of Scotland, unde
, Chalmers and his compeers was dis
! senting movement. The Bible itsel
/, Old Testament and New Testament,
a protest against the theories tha
, would have destroyed the world. and
dissenting as well as Divinely il
8 spired book. The Decalogue on Sin;
repeated ten times ''Thou shalt not
For ages to come will be quoted frol
p law books in courtrooms Justice Field
! magnificent dissenting opinions.
r Notice that our ascended friend ha
o such a character as assault and per
: alone can develop. He had not come I
4 the soft cushions of the supreme couI
n bench steppigg on cloth of gold and s;
: luted all along the Ene by handclal
r ping of applause. Country parsonage
t do not rock their babies in satin-line
: cradle or afterward send them out int
v the world with enough in their hand I
h purchase place and power. Pastor
AZ.