The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-01-11

70 have been wet by one tear! A raca
sublimated! A new world bcrn!"
But I say to our escort: did all
this merely happen SO? Are all the
good here spontaneously good? How
did you get the old shipwrecked world
afioat again, out of the breakers into
the smooth seas?" mo, no.' responds
our twenty-first century escort. do
you see those towers? Those are the
towers of churches, towers of reform
atofy institutions, towers cf Christian
schools. Walk with me, and let us
enter some of these temples" We en-
ter, and I find that the music is in
the major key and none of it in the
minor. "Gloria In Excelsis" rising
above Gloria In Excelsis." Tremolo
stop in the organ not so much used
as the trumpet stop. More of Ariel
than of Naomi. More chants than
dirges. Not thin song, the words
OF which no one understands on the
lip of soloist, but mighty harmonies
that roll from outside door to chan
ce and from floor to grained rafter
as though Handel had come out Of
the eighteenth century into the twen-
ty-first and had his foot on the organ
pedal, and Thomas Hastings had come
out of the early part of the nineteenth
century into the twenty-first and were
leading the voices. Music that moves
the earth and makes Heaven listen.
But I say to our twenty-first cen
tury escort: 81 cannot understand
this. Have these worshipers no sor-
rows, or have they forgotten their sor-
rows?" Our escort responds: ''Sor-
rows! Why, they had sorrows more
than you could count, but by divine
illumination that the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries never enjoyed
they understand the uses of sorrow
and are comforteG with supernatural
coincidence such as previous centuries
never experienced"
ask again of the interpreter: HAS
death been banished from the world %
The answer is: mo, but people die
now only when the physical machine
ry is worn out, and they realize it is
time to go and that they are certain
ly and without doubt going into a
world where they will be infinitely bet
ter off and are to live in a mansion
that awaits their immediate occu-
| pancy." "But how was all this ef-
fected?" / ask our escort. Answer:
s'By floods of Gospel power. You who
lived in the nineteenth century never
saw revival of religion to be COM
pared with what occurred in the lat
ter part of the twentieth and the early
| part of the twenty.first century. The
prophecy has been fulfilled that "a
nation shall be born in a day'-that is
ten or twenty or forty million people
converted in "a hours. In our church
history we read of the great awak-
ening of 1857, when SOC, 900 souls were
saved. But that was only a drop OF
the coming showers that since then
took into the kingdom of God every
4 thing between the Atlantic and the
Pacific, between the Pyrenees and the
Himalayas." The evils that good peo
pie were in the nineteenth century
/ trying to destroy have been overcome
by celestial forces. What human
weaponry failed to accomplish ha,
been done by omnipotent thunder
bolts.
.sBut what is yonder row of buildings
I majestic for architecture" The spirit
4 of the twenty-first century says;
ssThose are our legislative halls an6
places of public trust, and if you woult
like it will show You the political cir
cles, the modes of preferment, the style:
Of election, the character of public mel
in this century Thank you,'' re
4 ply. ''I can easily understand how Cos
pelization would improve indiyidual lif'
and social life and commercial life, bu
would like to see what it can do fol
i political life" 'Let me tell you" say
the spirit of the twenty-first century
.sthat 1 have read about political chi
canery and corruption of more than 10
years ago-the nineteenth century, j,
which you lived here-but the low po
litical caucus has gone from the face o
the earth, and the stuffed ballot box
and the bribery by money and by prom
Use Of Office, and the jobs got through
Legislatures and congresses by lobby
lists. We have nothing like a Credit Mo
bilier scandal, or those harbor and rive
!. appropriations, the most of which neve
. improved the harbors or rivers, o
. speeches to kill time and prevent a vote
or promotion to high place of politica
!, accidents, and the only bosses We hav
now boss because they have more brail
and purity than those who are bossed
. The money barrel to buy votes and t
ldecide whossha be elected did not rol
into this century. Allsthose in high od
: fice in township, state and nation ar
, men superior for intelligence and So
gacity and moral equipment and fines
, for the posts they occupy. All intrigu
and Machiavelism and temporizatio
are gone.
Il .The last corrupt judge of electio
; was buried SO years ago, the preache
!, officiating at the obsequies taking fo
D his text Proverbs 1857: The name Z
!, the wicked shall rot or Jeremiah 10: 2a