The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-08-17

sion OF 1t Is crime SO offensive that the
law clashes its iron jaws on anyone who
attempts it. Unless it be necessary to
stay for longer or shorter time in fam
lily hotel or boarding house-and there
are thousands of instances in which it
is necessary. as 1 showed you at
the beginning-unless this exceptional
ease, let neither wife nor husband con-
sent to such permanent residence.
The probability is that the wife will
have to divide her husbands time with
public smoking or reading-room or with
some coquettish spider in search of un-
wary flies. and if you do not entirely
lose your husband it will be because he
is divinely protected from the disasters
that whelmed thousands of husbands
with as good intentions as yours.
Neither should the husband without
imperative reason consent to such
life unless he is sure his wife can with
stand the temptation of social dissipa-
ton which sweeps across such places
with the force of the Atlantic ocean
when driven by September equinox.
Many wives give up their homes for
these public residences SO that they
may give their entire time to operas,
theaters, balls, receptions and levees,
and they are in a perpetual whirl, like
a whiptop spinning round and round
and round very prettily, until it loses
its equipoise and shoots off into tam
gent. But the difference is, in one case
it is top and in the other soul.
Besides this there is an assiduous &C.
cumulation of little things around the
private home. which in the aggregate
make great attraction, while the dem
izcn of one of these public residences
is apt to say: what is the use? l
have no place to keep them if should
take them." Mementos, bric-a-brac, GU
riosities, quaint chair or cozy lounge,
upholsteries, pictures and a thousand
things that accrete in home are dis
carded or neglected because there is no
homestead in which to arrange them.
And yet they are the case in which the
pearl of domestic happiness is set. You
can never become as attached to the
appointments of boarding house or
family hotel as to those things that you
can call your own and are associated
with the different members of your
household or with scenes of thrilling
import in your domestic history
Blessed is that home in which for a
whole lifetime they have been gather
ing until every figure in the carpet and
every panel of the door and every case
ment of the'window has chirography
of its own, speaking out something
about father or mother or son or daugh-
ter or friend that was with lis awhile.
What a sacred place it becomes when
one can say: I'm that room such one
was born; in that bed such one died;
in that chair | sat on thenight heard
such one had received great public
honor; by that stool my child knelt for
her last evening prayer; here sat to
greet my son as he came back from sea
voyage; that was fathers cane; that
was mothers rocking chair"
The public residence of hotel and
boarding house abolishes the grace of
hospitality. Your guest does not want
to come to such table. No one wants
to run such gantlet of acute and mer-
ciless hypercriticism. Unless you have
home of your own you will not be able
to exercise the best rewarded of all the
graces. For exercise of this grace what
blessing came to the Shunammite in the
restoration of her son to life because
; she entertained Elisha, and to the wild
, !, ow of Zarephath in the perpetual oil
! well of the miraculous cruise because
she fed hungry prophet, and to Ra.
hab in the preservation Of her life at the
demolition of Jericho because of his
his rescue from the destroyed city be.
cause of his entertainment of the an
gels, and to Mary and Martha. and
! Zaccheus in spiritual blessing because
:. they entertained Christ, and to Publius
in the island of Melita in the healing Of
E his father because of the entertain
4 ment of Paul, drenched from the ship
4 wreck, and of innumerable houses
$ throughout Christendom upon which
have come, blessings from generation
4 to generation because their doors
I swung easily open in the enlarging, en-
nobling, irradiating and divine grace
I of hospitality. I do not know wha
S your experience has been, but I hay'
i had men and women visiting at IN,
e house who left benediction on every
S room-in the blessing they asked atth'
i table, in the prayer they offered at th'
I. family altar. in the good advice the,
) gave the children, in the gospelizatiol
J, that looked out from every ,lineamen
S of their countenances, and their depar
a turc was the sword of bereavement
: The queen of Norway, Sweden and Den
: mark had royal cup of ten curves, O
S lips. each one having on it the nam
e Of the distinguished person who hat
e drunk from it. And that cup which w
t offer to others in Christian hospitality
y though it be of the plainest earthen
ware, is royal cup, and God can rea
on all sides the names of those VIII
!. have taken from it refreshment, bu
s all this is impossible unless you hav
e.