The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-05-17
BENTON, LOUISIANA, THURSDAY, MAY H. 1900

for your life! Fall back! Fall back
from the drinking saloon! Fall back |
from the wine party! Your fight is
your advance; your retreat is your |
victory. There is saloon down on the |
next street that has almost been the |
ruin of your soul. Then why do you
go along that street? Why do you
not pass through some other street
rather than by the place of your calam-
ity? A spoonful of brandy taken for
medicinal purposes by man who 20
years before had been reformed from
drunkenness hurled into inebriety and
the grave one of the best friends 1 ever
had. Retreat is victory.
Here is a converted infidel. He is SO
strong now in his faith in the Gospel
he says he can read anything. What
are you reading? Bolingbroke? An
drew Jackson Davis tracts? Tyndars
Glasgow university address? Drop
them and run. You will be an infidel be-
fore you die unless you quit that. These
men of All will be too much for you.
Turn your back on the rank and file
of unbelief. Fly before they cut you
with their swords and transfix you
with their javelins. There are people
who have been well-nigh ruined be-
cause they risked foolhardy expedi-
ton in the presence of mighty and
overwhelming temptations and the
men of Al made a morning meal OF
them.
So, also, there is victorious retreat in
the religious world. Thousands of
times the Kingdom Of Christ has
seemed to fall back. When the blood
of the Scotch Covenanters gave deep
dye to the heather of the highlands,
when the Vaudois of France chose ex-
termination rather than make an un-
christian surrender, when on st. Bar
tholomew's day mounted assassins
rode through the streets of Paris, cry
ing Kill! Bloodletting is good in Au-
gust! Kill! Death to the Huguenots!
KILL" when Lady Jane Grey's head
rolled from the executioner's block,
when Calvin was imprisoned in the
castle, when John Knox died for the
truth, when John Bunyan lay rotting
in Bedford Jail, saying: If God will
help me and my physical life continues
will stay here until the moss grows
on my eyebrows rather than give up
, my faith" the days of retreat for the
church were days of victory.
The pilgrim fathers fell back from
the other side of the sea to Plymouth
: Rock, but now are marshaling con
tinent for the Christianization of the
world. The church of Christ falling
back from Piedmont, falling back from
Rue st. Jacques, falling back from st
' Denis, falling back from Wurttembere
: castles, falling back from the Brussels
market place, yet all the time triumph
ing. Notwithstanding all the shocking
7 reverses which the Church of Chris
suffers, what do we see to-day? Twelve
!, thousand missionaries of the cross OIL
heather grounds; $4,000 ministers O
e Jesus Christ in this land; at least 400,
: 100000 of Christians on the earth. Fall
ing back, yet advancing until the olt
Wesleyan hymn will prove true:
> The Lion of Judah shall break the chain
i S~eASe eos~>A"'
But there is more marked illustra
ton of victorious retreat in the life o
i our Joshua, the Jesus of the ages
First falling back from an appalling
height to an appalling depth, falling
:, from celestial hills to terrestrial val
leys, from throne to manger; yet tina
did not seem to suffice him as re
treat. Falling back still farther fror
> Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazaret
n to Jerusalem, back from Jerusalem t
= Golgotha, back from Golgotha to tn
: mausoleum in the rock, back dow
: over the precipices of perdition unit
he walked amid the caverns of eterns
, captives and drank of the wine of tn
: wrath of Almighty God, amid th
y Ahabs, and the Jezekels, and the Be
II shazzars. Oh, men of the pulpit an
y men of the pew, Christ's descent frol
Heaven to earth does not measure ha
y the distance! It was from glory to PEI
u dition. He descended into hell. All th
y records of earthly retreat are as notl
ing compared with this falling bacl
N Santa Anna, with the fragments Of hi
r army flying over the plateaus of Me,
IS leo and Napoleon and his army retrea
is ing from Moscow into the awful snow
Is of Russia are not worthy to be me-
IF toned with this retreat, when all IL
m powers of darkness seem to be purs
IS. ing Christ as he fell back, until Il
ar body of Him who came to do sue
at wonderful things lay pulseless ar
y stripped. Methinks that the city I
as All was not so emptied of its inhabi
IN ants when they went to pursue Josht
IN as perdition was emptied of devi
le, when they started for the pursuit
ed Christ, and he fell back and bac
le, down lower, down lower, chasm belo
IN chasm, pit below pit, until he seem'
sh to strike the bottom of objurgatit
ID, and scorn and torture. Oh, the Ion
'e- loud, jubilant shout of hell at the d
u feat Of the Lord God Almighty!
to But let not the powers of darkne
rejoice quite SO soon. Do you he
that disturbance in the tomb
rs Arimathea? hear the sheet rendin