The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-01-25
BENTON. LOUISIANA THURSDAY, JANUARY 25 1900.

and churches and cs pitfalls of Christian
nations. and, as the sunlight strikes
through these vapors, they will write
in letters OF jet md gold all over the
sky, from horizo1 to zenith: GLORY
to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will 10 men!"
While thinking of these things ]
looked out from my window, and the
wind was violently blowing. And ]
saw from many chimneys the smoke
tossed in the air and whirled in great
velocity, volume after volume, fold
after fold, and carried on the swift
wind were the great pillars of smoke.
And, helped by Solomon in the text,
saw the speed of the church smy-
bolized. Do you realize the momentum
the church of Cod is under? Why,
the smoke of chimney on the top
Of Mount Washington, when the wind
is blowing 60 miles the hour, is slow
as compared VITA the celebrity of good
influences. For 50 centuries the devil
had it his own way among the ma
tions. Nearly all the great missionary
movements have been started within
the century, and see what one century
has done to recover the world frcm SO
centuries of devastation. What great
revivals! What mighty churches!
| What saved millions!
From the ruins of Babylon and AS
syria and Nineveh and the valleys OF
the Nile combinations have been ex-
humed proving to all fair-minded men
that the Bible is the truest book ever
written. The mythologies of Egypt
were found to have embodied in them
the knowledge of mans expulsion
from paradise and the sacrifice of q
great Emancipator. Moses account
of the creation, corroborated by the
hammer of Christian geologists; the
Oldest profane writers, Hiromus, Hell
anicus and Berosus, confirming the
Bible account of ancient longevity;
Tacitus and Pliny confirming the
Bible accounts of destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah; Tacitus and Porphyry
telling the same story of Christ as
Matthew and Luke told; Macrobius
telling of the massacre of children in
Bethlehem, and Phlegon sketching at
the crucifixion
It is demonstrated to all honest men
that it is not so certain that William
Cullen Bryant wrote s.Thanatopsis" OF
Longfellow wrote s.Hiawatha'' as that
God, by the hand of peophet and apos-
tie, wrote the Bible. All the wise men
in science and law and medicine and
literature and merchandise are grad.
ually coming to believe in Christianity
and soon there will be no people who
disbelieve in it except those conspicu.
GUS for lack Of brain or men with two
families, who do not like the Bible
because it rebukes their swinish pro
pensities.
i The time is fastening when there
will be no infidels left except liber
tines and harlots and murderers. Mil
lions of Christians where once there
were thousands, and thousands where
once there were hundreds. What 4
bright evening this, the evening CT ths
nineteenth century!
Oh, come into the church through
Christ the door, door more glorious
than that of the temple of Hercules
which had two pillars, and one wa:
gold and the other emerald! Come il
to-day! The world you leave behint
pass off like pillars of smoke. Whethel
the final confiagration will start in th'
coal mines of Pennsylvania, which, il
some places. have for many years beez
burning and eating into the heart o
the mountains, or whether it shall be
! gin near the California geysers o
whether from out the furnaces o
Cotopaxi and Vesuvius and Strombol
: it shall burst forth upon the aston
ished nations / make no prophecy, bu
all biologists tell us that we stand o.
! the lid of world, the heart of whicl
is raging, roaring, awful fame, am
some day God will let the red mon
sters out Of their imprisonment 0
$ centuries, and New York, on fire i
E 1885, and Charleston ON fire in 1856:
] and Chicago on fire in 1872, and Bos
ton on fire in 1873 were only like on
spark from blacksmith's forge a
7 compared with that last universe
! blaze which will be seen in othe
worlds. But gradually the flames wi
! lessen, and the world will become
! great living coal, and that win take 0
: ashen hue, and then our ruined plano
+ will begin to smoke, and the moul
I. tains will smoke, and the valleys wi
i smoke and tht. islands will Smox