The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-07-25

none to give. left my home at ten
years of age and served an appren-
ticeship of II years, receiving
the end of IL years of hard work
yoke of oxen and six sheep, which
brought me SS4. In the first month
after was 21 years of age I went in.
to the woods, drove a team and cut
mill logs. I arose in the morning be-
fore daylight and worked hard till
after dark and received the magnif-
cent sum of six dollars for the
months work. Each of those dollars
looked as large to me as the moon
looks tonight" Wonderful Henry
inal name. He changed his name be-
cause he did not want on him the
blight of a drunken father. As the
vice president stood in my pulpit in
Brooklyn, making the last address he
ever made, and commended the re-
igion of Christ TO the young men OF
that city thought to myself: "You
yourself are the sublimest spectacle
I ever saw of victory over obstacles"
For 80 years the wind blew the wrong
way, yet he did not observe the wind,
| but kept right on sowing.
Many of US who are now preachers
of the Gospel or medical practitioners
or members of the bar or merchants
or citizens in various kinds of busi-
ness had very poor opportunity at
the start because we had it too easy
far too easy. We never appreci-
ated what it is to get an education
because our fathers or older brothers
paid the schooling, and we did not get
the muscle which nothing but hard
work can develop. 1 congratulate
you, young man, if to you life is
struggle. It is out of such circum-
stances God makes heroes, if they
are willing to be made. Cut your
way through. If it were proper to do
so and you should stand in any board
of bank directors, in any board of
trade, in any legislature, state or ma
tional, and ask all who were brought
up in luxury and ease to lift their
hand, here and there hand might
be lifted. But ask those who had an
awful hard time at the start to lift
their hands, and most of the hands
would be lifted. The heroes of church
; and state were not brought up on
confectionery and cake.
. But my subject takes another step.
Through medical science and dentistry
that has improved the worlds masti-
cation and stronger defense against
climatic changes and better under
. standing of the laws of health human
life has been greatly prolonged. But
a centenarian is still wonder. How
, many people do you know hundred
, years old? I do not know one. We
! talk of a century as though it were
: a very long reach of time. But what
y is one century on earth compared
r with centuries that we are to live
a somewhere, somehow-ten centuries,
0 million centuries, quintillion OF
centuries? We are all determined to
get ready for the longer life we are
+ to live after our exit from things sub
!, lunary. We are waiting for more pro-
n pitious opportunity. We have too
4 much business to attend to now or too
!. much pleasure to allow anything to
;. interfere with it's brilliant progress.
|. We are waiting until the wind blows
= in the right direction. We are going
n to SOW, and SOW the very best grain,
r and we are going to raise an eternal
> harvest of happiness. We like what
YOU say about Heaven, and we are go
" ing there, and at the right time we
= will get ready. But my lungs are
&c sound, my digestion is good, the exam
h lining physician of the life insurance
= company says my heart beats just the
=, right number of times a minute, and
4 am cautious about sitting in draft,
:. and / observe all the laws of hygiene
# and my father and mother lived to be
n very old, and I come of long-livee
" " family. So we adjourn and postpone
until, like the farmer suggested b,
nv text, we allow the seedtime tt
-, pass, and sudden pneumonia or reck
:, less bicycle or an ungoverned automo
bile puts us out of life with all its mag
). nifcent opportunities of deciding
~ =. Alright the question of everlasting res
40 40 idence. A Spanish proverb says: 9TH
- u road of By and By leads to the town
"a Never"
- Ihere are some persons VINO tTutE
y. fully say: II am doing the best
-, can. The clouds are thick and tn
-. ~ wind blows the wrong way, but I al
: ~ sowing prayers and sowing kline
:. nesses and sowing helpfulness an
= sowing hopes of better world.
~ Good for you, my brother, my sister
10 What you plant will come up. Wha
w. you SOW will rise into a harvest th
WV wealth Of which you will not kno
~ until you go up higher. l hear th
- rustling of your harvest in the brigf
-, fields of Heaven. The soft gales I
W that Land, as they pass, bend the fu
-. headed grain in curves Of beauty.
o. is golden in the light of a sun TIL;
" never sets. AS you pass in you wi
=. N not have to grid on the sickle for Il
:. reaping, and there will be nothing
~. remind you of weary husbandm'
- toiling under hot summer sun
- ~ earth and lying down under the sha
5" ow of the tree at noontide