The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-01-19

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Now, have seen Dore's pictures and
many other pictures of the entrance
into the ark, two and two of the hui
man family and the animal creation
into that ship which sailed between
two worlds. a,tediluvian world and the
postdiluvian world, but | never saw
| 4 picture of their coming out, yet their
cmbarkation was not more important
than their Discrimination. Many
crew has entered ship that never
/ Landed. Witness the steamer Portland
i short time ago, with 100 souls On
board, going down with all its crew and
| passengers. Witness the line of sunken
ships reaching like submarine cable
| of anguish across the ocean depths
from America to Europe. If any ship
might expect complete wreckage, the
one Noah commanded might have ex-
pected it. But no. Those who en-
harled disembarked. Over the plank
reaching down the side of the ark to
| The Armenian cliffs on which they had
| been stranded the procession descend
ed. No other wharf felt so solid or af
torded such attractiveness as that
l.eight of Ararat when the eight pas
sengers put their feet on it. And no
sooner had the last one, the invalided
wife of Japheth, been helped down the
| plank upon the rock than the other
apartments of the ship were opened,
ard such a dash of bird music never
filed the air as when the entire Or
chestra of robin redbreast. and morn
/ irg lark, and chaffinch, and mocking
bird. and house swallow took wing into
the bright sky, while the cattle began
To low and the sheep to bleat and the
horses to neigh for the pasture, which
from the awful submergence had now
begun to grow green and aromatic. !
tell you plainly nothing interests me
more in that tragedy from the first to
Ike last act than the exit and the
"cxeunt." than the fact that the "shut
iEs" became the "go outs" And l now
cheer with this story all the inmates
cf sickrooms and hospitals, and those
prisons where men and women are
unjusuy endungeoned, and all the thou
sands who are bounded on the north
and south and east and west by floods.
fy deluges of misfortune and disaster.
The ark of your trouble, if it does not
land on some earthly height of vindi-
cation and rescue, will land on the
| heights celestial
If you have put your trust in God,
you will come out in the garden of the
King, among orchards bending with IL
manner of fruits md harvests that
wave in the light of a sun that never
sets. AS the eight passengers of that
craft of Captain Noah never got over
talking about their seafaring expert
ences. 50 you who have been the shut
ins Of earth will add unbounded inter
est to the conversations of Heaven by
recalling and reciting your earthly ex-
perences, and the rougher those ex-
periences the more thrilling will they
be TO yourself and others who listen.
AS when we sit amid group of soldiers
and hear their story of battle or a
group of sailors and hear their story of
cyclones we feel stupid because we have
nothing in our life worth telling, how
uninterssting will be those souls in
Heaven who had smooth sailing all
their lives and no accidents. while Noah
tells his story of the deluge, and Lot his
story of escape from destroyed cities,
and Paul his story Of the Alexandrian
corn ship, and you tell your story of the
days and nights and years of the times
when you were shut in. You will be in
teresting and sought after in Heaven in
proportion as you are martyrized of
persecution and pain on earth. And
surely You do not want to get the adj
vantage of Heavenly association and
consideration without yourself adding
some interest to the interview. | hail
all the shut ins because they will be
brighter for your earthly privations
and environments. For a man who has
always lived in mansion, and walked
in fine gardens, and regaled his appetite
on the best fruits, and the warmest furs
for winter, coolest linens for August
heat, and brilliant earthly surround
ings, Heaven will not be so much a
say: "Why, l am used to this. Don't
show me the gardens. Why, l was
brought up at Chatsworth. Don't in
vite me into chariot. l always had a
splendid turnout. Dom. invite me to
the feast. l have been accustomed to
Belshazzarian banquets. 1t would be a
relief to me if l could leave Heaven a
little while and rough it in some other
world"
But what Heaven it will be for those
whose limbs were so rheumatic they
could not take a step when they get
wings. What Heaven it will be for
those who were always sick when they
are always well, and after 20 years of
pain to have millions of years of health!
What light will be the light of Heaven
for those who on earth could not see
their hand before their faces! And
what will the music of Heaven be to
those the tympanum of whose ears for
many years had ceased to vibratc! De-
MED on earth :he pleasure of listening
! fo Hand II :, nd HoyGp and Nc NIL Ice ob :, g