The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-01-05

erHmeEt in its first attempts to walk
alone.
The birthday Of our nineteenth cen
tury occurred in the time of war. Our
small United States navy, under Capt.
Truxton, commanding the frigate Con-
stitutioE, was in collision with the
French frigates La Vengeance and
LInsurgente, and the first infant cries
of this century were drowned in the
roar of naval battle. And political
strife on this continent was the hottest,
the parties rending each other with
pantherine rage. The birthday present
Of this nineteenth century was vituper-
alton. public unrest. threat of national
demolition and horrors national and
international. adjure you, let not the
twentieth century be met in that awful
way, but with all brightness of tempo
raj and religious prospects.
First, let us put upon the cradle OF the
new century new map OF the world.
The old map was black with too many
barharisms and red with too many
slaughters and pale with too many suf-
map. so far as possible, our country
from ocean to ocean is Christianized
ontinent-scho ools, colleges. churches
and good homes in long line from ocean
beach to ocean beach. On that map
Cuba must be free. Porto Rico must
be free. The archipelago of the Phil
ippines must be free. If cruel Spain
expects by procrastinaiion and intrigue
to get back what she has surrendered
then the warships Iowa and Indiana
and Brooklyn and Texas and Vesuvius
and Oregon must be sent back to
southern waters or across to the coast
cf Spain to silence the insolence. as Ge-
cidedly as last summer they silenced
the Cristobal Colon and Oquendo and
Maria Teresa and Nizcaya. When we
get those islands thoroughly under our
protectorate. for the first time our mis-
sionaries in China will be safe. The
atrocities imposed on those good men
and women in the so-called Flowery
Kingdom will never be resumed, for our
guns will! be too near Iong-Kong TO al
low the massacre of missionary settle
ments.
On that map must be put the isthmian n
canal. begun if not completed. No long
voyages around Cape Horn for the
worlds merchandise. but short ard
cheap communication by water instead
of expensive communication by rail
train, and more millions will be added
to our national wealth and the world
betterment than have capacity to cal
culate.
On the map which we will put on the
cradle on the new century we must
have very soon railroad bridge across
Bering strait. those 36 miles of water,
not deep, and they are spotted with
islands capable of holding the piers OF
a great bridge. And what with Amer
ica and Asia thus connected and ST.
berian railway, and railroad now
projected for the length of Africa. and
Palestine and Persia and India and
China and Burma intersected with rail-
read tracks, all Of which will be dome
before the new century is grown up
the way will be open to the quick cis-
ilization end evangelization of the
whole world. The old map we used t,
study in our boyish days is dusty and
on the top shelf or amid the rubbish of
the garrett and so will the present map
of the world. however gilded and beau
tifully bound. be treated, and an en-
tirely new map will be put into the
infantile hand of the coming century.
The work of this century has been
to get ready. All the earth is now free
to the Gospel except two little spots
the beginning of the century there
stood the Chinese wall and there famet;
the fires and there glittered the swords
that forbade entrance to many islands
and large reaches of continent. Hor.
nesian cruelties and FIJI island canni-
gates of the continents are swung open
with clang that has been a positive
and glorious invitation for Christian.
ity to enter. Telegraph. telephone and
phonograph are to be consecrated to
Gospel dissemination, and, instead OF
the voice that gains the attention ci
few hundred or a few thousand peo-
pie within the church walls. the tele
graph will thrill the glad tidings and
the telephone will utter them to-many
millions. Oh. the infinite advantage
that the twentieth century has over
| what the nineteenth century had at the
starting!
In preparation for this coming cen
| tury we have time in the intervening
| years to give some decisive strokes al
| the seven or eight great evils that curse
the world. 1t would be an assault ant
battery upon the coming century by
this century ii we allowed the full blow
of present evils to fall upon the future
We ought somehow to cripple or minify
some of these denominations. Alec
holism is to-day triumphant, and are W.
to let the alldevouring monster thai
has throttled this century seize upor
the next without first having filed hi:
accursed hide with stinging arrow!
enough to weaken and stagger him
|