The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-10-31

house OF many mansions Will STAND,
as long as the throne of God will stand.
Another defeat of oblivion will be
found in the character of those whom
we rescue, uplift or save. Character
is eternal. Suppose by right infu-
ence we aid in Transforming bad man
into a good man, dolorous man into
a happy man, disheartened man into
courageous man, every stroke OF
that work done win be immortalized.
There may never be SO much as ono
line in a newspaper regarding it or
no mortal tongue may ever whisper it
into human ear, but wherever that soul
shall go your work upon it shall go,
wherever that soul rises your work
on it will rise, and so long as that soul
will last your work on it will last. Do
you suppose there win ever come such
an idiotic lapse in the history of that
soul in Heaven that it shall forget that
you invited him to Christ; that you,
by prayer or Gospel word, turned him
round from the wrong way to the right
way? No such insanity will ever smite
a heavenly citizen. 1t is not half as
well on earth known that Christopher
Wren planned and built St. Paul's 8
it will be known in all Heaven that you
were the fundamentally ef building
temple for the sky. We teach a
Sabbath class or put a Christian tract
in the hand of passerby or testify
for Christ in a prayer-meetin or
preach sermon and go home discour-
aged, as though nothing had been &C
complished, when we had been char
acter building with material that no
frost or earthquake or rolling of the
centuries can damage or bring down
Oh, this character building! The
structure lasting independent Of
passing centuries, independent Of
crumbling mausoleums, independent
of the whole planetary system. Aye,
if the material universe, which seems
all bound together like one piece of
machinery, should some day meet with
an accident that should send worlds
crashing into each other like tele-
scoped railway trains, and all the
wheels of consultations and galaxies
should stop, and down into one chasm
of immensely all the suns and moons
and stars should tumble like the mid
night express at Ashtab ula, that would
not touch US and would not hurt God,
for God is spirit, and character and
memory are immortal, and over that
grave of a wrecked material universe
might truthfully be written: 1.-THE
righteous shall be held in everla sting
remembrance" o Time, we defy thee!
0 Death, We stamp thee in the dust of
thine own sepulchers! o Eternity, roll
on till the last star has stopped rotat-
ing and the last sun is extinguished on
the sapphire pathway and the last
moon has illuminated the last night
and as many years have passed as all
the scribes that ever took pen could de-
scribe by as many figures a they could
write in all the centuries of all time,
but thou shalt have no power to efface
from any soul in glory the memory of
anything we have done to bring it to
God and Heaven.
What joy, what honor, can there be
comparable to that of being remem-
bered by the mightiest and most af-
fectionate being in the universe?
Think of it, to hold an everlasting
place in the heart of God! The heart
of God! The most beautiful palace in
the universe. Let the archangel build
some palace as grand as that if he
can. Let him crumble up all the stars
of yesternight and tomorrow night
and put them together as mosaics for
such a palace floor. Let him take all
the sunrises and sunsets of all the days
and the auroras of all the nights and
hang them up is upholstery a it's win
dows. Let him take all the rivers and
all the lakes and all the oceans and toss
them into the fountains of this pal
ace court. Let him take all the gold
of all the hills and hang it in it's chan.
deliers and all the pearls of the seas
and all the diamonds of all the fields,
and with them arch the doorways of
that palace and then invite into all
the glories that Esther ever saw at a
Persian banquet or Daniel ever walked
among in Babylonian castles or Jo-
seph ever witnessed in Pharaoh's
throneroom and then yourself enter
this palace of archangelic construction
and see how poor a palace it is COM
pared with the greater palace that
some of you have already found in
the heart of loving and pardoning
God and into which ii the music and all
the prayers and all the sermonic con-
siderations of this day are trying to
introduce you through the blood of the
slain Lamb.
Oh, where is oblivion now? From
the dark and overshadowing word that
it seemed when l began it has become
something which no man or woman or
child who loves the Lord need ever fear.
Oblivion defeated. Oblivion dead. OBJ
livion sepulchered. But l must not
be SO hard on this devouring moDste ter.
for into its grave go all our sins when
the Lord for Ckrist's sake has for
given them. Just blow a resurrec-
ton trumpet over them when once OBJ
livion has snapped them down. Not
one of them rises. Blow again. Not
stir amid all the pardoDed iniquitfes
e