The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-01-03
BENTON, LOUISIANA, THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1901

1t may not be as elegant style of
work as you would prefer. 1t may
callous and begrime your hands and
put you in suffocating atmosphere
and stand you shoulder to shoulder
with the unrefined and may leave your
overalls the opposite of aromatic, bat
remember that if God calls you to do
one thing you will never be happy in
doing something else.
All the great successes have been
gained through opposition and strug-
gle. Charles Goodyear, the inventor,
whose name is now synonym all the
world over for fortune added to for
tune, waded many years. chin deep
through the worlds scorn and was
thrust in debtors prison and came
with his family to the verge Of star
vation, but continued his experiments
with vulcanized rubber until he added
more than can be estimated to the
worlds health and comfort, as well as
to his own advantage. Columbus and
John Fitch, and Stephenson and Rob-
ert Bruce, and Cyrus w. Field and 500
others were illustrations of what te-
nacity and pluck can do. Hard pound
ing," said Wellington at Waterloo,
"hard pounding, gentlemen, but we
will see who can pound the longest"
Yes, my friends, that is the secret,
not flight from obstacles in the way,
but "who can pound the longest"
The child had it right when attempt
ing to carry ton of coal, a shovelful
at time, from the sidewalk to the
cellar, and some one asked her: do
you expect to get all that coal in with
that little shovel?" And she replied:
Eyes, sir, If work long enough" By
the help of God choose your calling
and stick to it. The gadabouts are
failures for this life, to say nothing
of the next.
There are many who exhibit this
frailty in matters of religion. They are
not sure about anything that pertains
to their soul or their eternal destiny.
Now they are Unitarians, and now they
are Universalists, and now they are
Methodists, and now they are Presby-
terians, and now they are nothing at
all. They are not quite sure that the
Bible was inspired or, If inspired,
whether the words or the ideas were
inspired or whether only part of the
Book was inspired. They think at one
time that the story in Genesis about
the garden of Eden is a history, and the
month after they think it is an allie
CORY. At one time they think the book
of Job describes what really occurred,
but the next time they speak of it they
call it drama. Now they believe all
the miracles, but at your next inter
view they try to show how these
scenes had nothing in them supernat-
ural, but can be accounted for by nat
ural causes. Gadding about among re-
fgious theories and never satisfied. All
the evidence is put before them, and
why do they not render verdict? If
they cannot make up their mind with
all the data put before them, they
never will.
My text also addresses those who
in search of happiness are going
hither and yonder looking for that
which they find not. Their time is all
taken up with "musicales," and "pro-
gressive euchres," and teas, and yell
low luncheons, and "at homes" and
dances, and operas, and theaters; and,
instead of finding happiness, they get
pale cheeks, and insomnia, and indi-
gestion, and neuralgia, and exhaus-
ton, and an abbreviated lifetime.
There is more splendid womanhood
sacrificed in that way in our cities
than in any other way. The judg-
ment day only can reveal the awful
holocaust of tangled nerves and the
suicidal habits of much of our social
life. The obituary of such reads well,
for the story is suppressed about how
they got their death while standing
in attire of gauze, waiting for the
carriage on a raw night, on the front
steps. While in their lifetime they
possessed all the ability for the relief
of pain and impoverishment, yet they
have no time for visitation of the
poor, or to win the blessing of such
as comes upon those who administer
to those who are ready to perish.
Enough flowers in their dining halls
to bewitch a prince, but not one tuft
Of heliotrope to perfume the room of
that rheumatic on the back street, to
whom the breath Of one flower would
be like the opening of the front door
of Heaven. Find me one man or one
woman who in all the rounds of pleas
ure and selfishness has found a piece
of happiness as large as that half dol
lar which the benevolent and Christ
like soul puts into the palm OF the
hand of that mother whose children
are crying for bread. Queen Victoria
riding in triumph through London at
her jubilee was not so sublime fig
ure as Queen Victoria in a hut near
Balmoral castle reading the New Tes-
lament to poor dying man. Let all
the gadabouts for happiness know
that in kindness and usefulness and
self-abnegation are to be found sat
isfaction which all the gayeties Of the
world aggregated cannot afford.
Among the race of gadabouts are
those who neglect their homes in order