The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-05-03

q spendthritt. libertine and a sot."
The son says: 'Now, father, what is
the use of your talking that way? You
told me to go it, and just took your
And SO to strike the me-
dunn between severity and too great
leniency, to strike the happy medium
between the two and to train our chill
dren for God and for Heaven is the
anxiety of every intelligent parent.
Some go to work and try to correct
all this, and the boy is picked at and
picked at and picked at. That always
is ruinous. There is more help in one
good thunderstorm than in five days of
cold drizzle. Better the old-fashioned
style OF chastisement if that be neces-
sary than the fretting and the scolding
which have destroyed so many.
There is also a cause of great solici-
tude sometimes because our young peo-
pie are surrounded by SO many temp
tations. A castle may not be taken by
Straightforward siege, but suppose
there be inside the castle an enemy, and
in the night he shoves back the bolt
and swings open the door. Our young
folks have foes without, and they have
foes within. Who does not understand
it? Who is the man here who is not
aware of the fact that the young peo-
pie of this day have tremendous tempta-
tions?
Some man will come to the young
people and try to persuade them that
purity and honesty and uprightness
are sign of weakness. Some man will
take a dramatic attitude, and he will
talk to the young man, and he will say:
"You must break away from your
mothers apron strings. You must get
out of that puritanical straightiacket.
1t is time you were your own master.
You are verdant. You are green. You
are unsophisticated. Come with me;
I'll show you the world. I'll show you
life. Come with me. You need to see
the world. 1t won't hurt you" After
awhile the young man says: "Well,
can't afford to be odd. I can't afford
to be peculiar. I can't afford to sacri-
flee all my friends. I'll just go and see
for myself" Farewell to innocence,
which once gone never fully comes
back. Do not be under the delusion
that because you repent of sin you get
rid forever of its consequences. I say
farewell to innocence, which once gone
never fully comes back.
Oh, how many traps set for the
young! Styles of temptation just suit
ed to them. Do you suppose that man
who went clear to the depths of dissi-
patton went down in one great plunge?
Oh, no! At first it was fashionable
hotel. Marble floor. No unclean pic
lures behind the counter. No drunken
while they drink, but the click
of cut glass to the elegant sentiment.
You ask that young man now to go into
some low restaurant and get drink,
and he would say: do you mean to
insult me?" But the fashionable and
the elegant hotel is not always close by,
and now the young man is on the down
grade. Further and further down, un-
til he has about struck the bottom of
the depths of ruin. Now he is in the
low restaurant. The cards so greasy
you can hardly tell who has the best
hand. Gambling for drinks. Shuttle
away, shuttle away. The landlord
stands in his shirt sleeves, with his
hands on his hips, waiting for an order
to fill up the glasses.
The clock strikes 12-the tolling of
the funeral bell of soul. The breath
of eternal woe flushes in that young
mans cheeks. In the jets of the gas
light the fiery tongue of the worm that
never dies. Two o'clock in the morn
ing, and now they are sound asleep in
their chairs. Landlord comes around
and says: "Wake up, wake up! Time
to shut up" "What?" says the young
man. "Time to shut up?" Push them
all out into the night air. Now they are
going home. Going home! Let the
wife crouch in the corner and the chill
dren hide under the bed. What was
the history of that young man? He be-
gan his dissipations in the barroom of
a Fifth avenue hotel and completed his
in the lowest grogshop.
Sometimes sin does not halt in that
way. Sometimes sin even comes to the
There are leprous
hearts sometimes admitted in the high
est circles of society. He is SO elegant,
he is so bewitching in his manner, he is
SO refined, he is so educated, no one sus-
poets the sinful design, but after awhile
the talons of death come forth. What
is the matter with that house? The
front windows have not been opened
for six months or year. A shadow has
come down on that domestic hearth,
shadow thicker than one woven of mid
night and hurricane. The agony of that
parent makes him say: "Oh, wish
had buried my children when they were
SMALL" Loss of property? No. Death
in the family. No. Madness? No.
Some villain, kid-gloved and diamond
ed, lifted that cup of domestic bliss un-
til the sunlight struck it and all the
rainbows played around the rim and
then dashed it into desolation and woe,
until the harpies of darkness clapped
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