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

God has emotion. They think it would
be a Divine weakness to be stirred by
any earthly spectacle. The God of the
learned Bruch and Schleiermacher is an
infinite intelligence, without feeling,
cold and cheerless divinity. But the
Ged we worship is one of sympathy and
compassion and helpfulness and af-
fection. God is love-"
In all the Bible there is no more con-
solatory statement. The very best peo-
pie have in their lives occurrences mex
plicable. They are bereft or prosecuted
or impoverished or invalided. They
have only one child, and that dies,
while the next door neighbor has seven
children, and they are all spared. The
unfortunates buy at time when the
market is rising and the day after the
market falls. At a time when they need
to feel the best for the discharge of
some duty they are seized with physical
collapse. Trying to do good and hon
est and useful thing they are misrep-
resented and belied as if they had
practiced villainy. These are people
who all their lives have suffered injus-
tees. Others of less talent, with less
conservation, go on end up, while they
90 on and down. There are in many
lives riddles that have never been solved,
mysteries that have never been ex-
planned, heartbreaks that have never
been healed. Go to that man or that
woman with philosophic explanation,
and you will make matters worse in
stead of making them better. But let
the oceanic tide of the text roll in that
soul, and all its worriments and losses
and disasters will be submerged with
blessing, and the sufferer will say: Il
cannot understand the reason for my
troubles, but I will some day under
stand. And they do not come by acci-
dent. God allows them to come, and
God is love-"
But for this divine feeling I think
our world would long ago have been
demolished. Just think of the organ
ICED wickedness of the nations! See
the denominations continental! Behold
the false religions that hoist Moham-
med and Buddha and Confucius! Look
at the Koran and the Shastra and the
ZendAvesta that would crowd out Of
the world the Holy Scriptures! Look
at war, digging it's trenches for the
dead across the hemispheres! See the
great cities, with their holocaust of
destroyed manhood and womanhood!
What blasphemies assail the heavens!
What butcheries sicken the centuries!
What professions of crime and atrocity
and woe encircle the globe! If justice
had spoken, it would have said: "The
world deserves annihilation, and let
annihilation come" If immutability
had spoken, it would have said: u have
always been opposed to wickedness and
always will be opposed to it. The world
is to me an affront infinite, and away
| with it." If omniscience had spoken,
| it would have said: 81 have watched
that planet with minute and compre-
hensive inspection, and cannot have
the offense longer continued" If truth
had spoken, it would have said: Il de-
| clare that they who offend the law
must 60 down under the law" But di
vine love took different view of the
worlds obduracy and pollution. II
| said: Il pity all those woes of the
earth. / cannot stand here and see
no assuagement of those sufferings.
will go down and reform the world
| | will medicate it's wounds. will calm
ton. / will become incarnated. vii
take on my shoulders and upon my
brow and into my heart the conse
| quences of the worlds misbehavior.
start now, and between my arrival al
Bethlehem and my ascent from Olive
will weep their tears and suffer theil
griefs and die their death. Farewell
my throne, my crown, my scepter, my
angelic environment, my Heaven, til
[ have finished the work and com,
back!" God was never conquered bu
once, and that was when He was con
1uered by His own love. God is love.
In this day, when the creeds o
churches are being revised, let NOR,
emphasis be put upon the thought o
my text. Let it appear at the beginnin.
of every creed and at the close. Th,
ancients used to tell of great mill
tary chieftain who, about to go to bat
tie, was clad in armor, helmet on heat
and sword at side, and who put ou
lis arms to give farewell embrace I,
his child, and the child, affrighted a
his appearance, ran, shrieking, away
Then the father put off the armor tha
caused the alarm, and the child sav
who he was and ran into his arms an,
snuggled against his heart. Creed
must not have too much iron in thei
make up, terrorizing rather than at
tracing. They must not hide the smil
ing face and the warm heart of ou
Father, God Let nothing imply tha
there is sheriff at every door ready t.
make arrest, but over us all and aroun'
Us all a mercy that wants to save, an
save now.
II one paragraph of the creed seem
to take you, like a child, out of tn
arms of father, let the next paragraph
put you in the arms of mother. "A
one whom his mother comforteth, S
will 1 comfort you." Oh, what
mother we have in God. And nv tex