The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-12-26
A SONG OF THANKS.
National Congratulations for the
Achievements of Past Year.
Thanksgiving Sermon of DR.. Tai
mage in Which He Speaks of
Many Marvellous Changes
Victories of Peace.
copyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch. N. II
Washington,

This discourse OF DIR. Ialmage is
national congratulation over the
achievements of brain and hand dur
ing the past IL months. The texts are:
I. Corinthians 9:1O, "He that ploweth
should plow in hope;" Isaiah 41:7, "He
that smootheth with the hammer"
Judges 5:14, "They that handle the
pen of the writer"
There is table being spread across
the top of the two great ranges of
mountains which ridge this continent,
table which reaches from the At
lantic to the Pacific sea. 1t is the
Thanksgiving table of the nation.
They will come from the east and the
west and the north and the south and
sit at it. On it are smoking the prod
ucts of all lands, birds of every aviary,
cattle from every pasture, fish from
every lake, feathered spoils from every
farm. The fruit baskets bend down
under the products plucked from the
peachfields of Maryland, the apple or
chards of western New York, the or
ange groves of Florida, the vineyards
of Ohio and the nuts threshed from
New Eng gland woods. The bread is white
from the wheat fields of Illinois and
Michigan, the banqueters are adorned
with California gold, and the table is
a-gleam with Nevada silver, and the
feast is warmed with the fire CRATES
heaped up with Pennsylvania coal.
The hall is spread with carpets from
Lowell mills, and at night the lights
will flash from bronzed brackets of
Philadelphia manufacture. The fin
gers of Massachusetts, girls have hung
the embroidery, the music is the drum
ming of ten thousand mills, accom-
panied by the shout of children let
loose for play, and the gladness of the
harvesters driving barnward the loads
of sheaves, and the thanksgiving of
the nation which crowd the celestial
gates with doxologies until the oldest
harper of Heaven cannot tell where
the terrestrial song, ends and the
Celestial song begins.
Welcome, Thanksgiving day! What
ever we may think of New England
theology, we all like New England
Thanksgiving day. What means the
steady rush to the depots and the long
rail trains darting their lanterns along
the tracks of the Boston & Lowell, the
Georgia Central, the Chicago Great
Western, the st. Paul & Duluth and the
Southern railway? Ask the happy
group in the New England farmhouse.
Ask the villagers whose song of praise
in the morning will come over the
Berkshire hills. Ask all the planta-
tions of the south which have adopted
the New England custom of setting
apart day of Thanksgiving. Oh, it
is great day of national festivity!
Clap your hands, ye people, and shout
aloud for joy! Through the organ
pipes let there come down the thunder
of nations rejoicing! Blow the cor
net! Wave the palm branches! ooh,
that men would praise the Lord for His
Goodness and for His wonderful works
to the children of men,"
Most of the implements of hus-
bandry have been superseded by mod
ern inventions, but the plow has never
lost it's reign. It has furrowed its way
through all the ages. It's victories have
been waved by the barley of Palestine,
the wheat of Persia, the fax of Ger
many, the rice stalks of China, the rich
grasses of Italy. It has turned up
the mammo 9th of Siberia, the mastodon
of Egypt and the pine groves of Thes-
sally. It's iron foot hath marched
where Moses wrote and Homer sang
and Aristotle taught and Alexander
mounted his war charger. It hath
| wrung it's Golfer on Norwegian wilds
| and ripped out the stumps of the
American forest, pushing its way
| through the savannas of the Carolinas
and trembling in the grasp of the New
Hampshire yeomanry.
I do not wonder that the japanese
and the Chinese and the Phoenicians
SO particularly extolled husbandry or
| that Cincinnatus went from the con-
| sulship to the plow or that Noah was a
| farmer before he became shipbuilder
| or that Elisha was in the field plowing
with 12 yoke of oxen when the mantle
fell on him or that the Egyptians in
their paganism worshiped the OK an a
tiller of their lands.
| PiltheCs, the king, found some rich
gold mines in his province, SO he
turned all the population to digging in
the mines. Tillage was neglected, and
there came a great famine. One day
the wife of the king invited him to a
great banquet, and he came in and sat
down, and there were pieces of golG
in the shape of bread, and pieces o.
gold in the shape of biscuits, and pieces
Of gold in the shape of joints of meat
and the king was disguised, and hs
said: 81 cannot eat this" 'Neithel
can the people," said his wife most sug
gestively, and thsn they went back tt
the tillage.
Within our time the presidential
cabinet has added secretaryship o
agriculture. Societies are CONSTANT,
being established for the education