The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-01-31


page to tell It that God will chastisa
many an offender. You can look
through the wicket of any prison and
see the fact which the world under
stood thousands of years before Solo
mon wrote it: "The way of the trans
gressor is hard" The world needed
no Bible to tell it that God is omnipo-
tent, for anyone who has seen Mont
Blanc or Niagara or the Atlantic ocean
in a cyclone knows that. The world
needed no Bible to tell it of Gods wis
dom, for everything, from spiders
web to the upholstery of a summers
sunset, from the globe of dewdrop
to the rounding of a world, declares
that. But there was one secret about
God that was wrapped up in scroll of
parchment, and it staid there until
apostolic hand unrolled that scroll
and let out upon the world the start
ling fact, which it could never have
surmised, never guessed, never expect
ed. that He loved our human race SO
ardently that He will pardon sin and
subdue the offender with a Divine kiss
and turn foaming malefactors into
worshipers before the throne.
Notice that the wisest men of the ma
tons for thousands of years did not,
amid their idolatries, make something
to represent this feeling, this emotion.
They had Jove, representing might;
Neptune, the god of the sea; Minerva,
the goddess of wisdom; Venus, the god
dess of base appetite; Ceres, the god
dess of corn, and an Odin, and an Osiris,
and Titan, and a Juggernaut, and
whole pantheons of gods and goddesses,
but no shrine, no carved image, no
sculptured form has suggested god
of pure love. That was beyond human
brain. 1t took God to think that,
God to project that, God let down
from Heaven to achieve that.
Fear is the dominant thought in all
false religions. For that the devotees
cut themselves with lances and swing
on iron hooks and fall under wheels and
hold up the right arm SO long that they
cannot take it down. Fear, british
| tear! But love is the queen in our re-
ligion. For that we build temples.
For that we kneel at our altars. For
that we contribute our aims. For that
| martyrs suffered at Brussels market
place and at Lucknow and Cawnpur
| and Peking. That will yet bejewel
| the round earth and put it an emerald
on the great, warm, throbbing heart OF
| God.
The world has had many specimens
of slandered men and women, their
motives slandered, their habits SLAM
dered-slandered until they got out
of the world, and then perhaps HON
ored by elaborate eulogium and tall
shaft of granite, all four sides chis-
eled with the story Of how good and
great they were. But no one under
the heavens or over the heavens has
ever been so much slandered as God.
Bad men have fought against Him and
have thought they heard His voice
in the crash of a thunderstorm, but
have not seen Him in the sunshine Of
the spring morning. They have blamed
Him for wrongs which they had done
themselves. The sight of a church
building excites their disgust. They
like the madrigal of saloon better
than the doxology Of a temple. They
do not want to live with Him in
Heaven, but would prefer on leaving
this world to go into some realm
where God has abdicated the throne
and from which He is exiled forever.
The reason is they do not know Him.
They do not realize the fact that God
is the best friend this world ever had
or ever will have, and that He would
do more for their happiness than any
one in the wide universe; that BE
would help them in the wear and tear
and tussle of this life; that He would
hush their sorrows; that He wonld
help cure the evil habits with which
they sometimes struggle; that He
would at their request not only for
give but forget the wrong things in
their life. Yes, forget! And that is
the only thing that God ever does for
get-pardoned transgression. The best
memory in the universe is Gods mem
ory, and He remembers all that has
transpired in all time and in all
eternity save one kind of occurrence.
That passes completely out of His
| memory. he QeCtdTeS. lHcH sluS
and their iniquities will | remember
no more"
What do the Bible and the church
liturgies mean when they say: "He
descended into help" They mean that
His soul left His sacred body for
awhile and went down into the prison
of moral night, and swung back It's
great door, and lifted the chain of
captivity, and felt the awful lash that
would have come down on the worlds
back, and wept the tears of an eter-
nal sacrifice, and took the bolt OF Di-
vine indignation against sin into Him
self, and, having vanquished death and
hell, came out and came up, having
achieved an eternal rescue if we will
accept it.
Some have compared the love of God
to the ocean, but the comparison fails,
for the ocean has a shore, and Gods
love is boUadless. But if you insist on
comparing the love of God to the
NIT ou that oman f~,xr