The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-05-29

the mud. When they first came to a
standstill they pulled and tugged and
struggled, and the more they pulled
the more exhausted they became. The
result was instead of getting ahead
they became discouraged. They just
gave up all hope and lay down to die.
If you would go to that wearied and
stumbling man and help him carry the
load up the crossing, help him out of
the ruts, you would not only do good
to the extent to which you relieved
him of his superintendent weight, but
you would stimulate him to exert his
own energies until after awhile he,
though weakly, would be strength
ened and encouraged to take care of
himself.
This is an age of the specialization
of talents. Instead of one man maxim g
a shoe, as in olden Tins a single cob
bier did, it now takes so Ten to
make the same shoe. Instead of one
wcman spinning her own thread and
weaving her own cotton and sewing
her own garments each woman con-
centrates her power of mind upon one
distinct part of an industry. Civiliza-
tion has developed it's cotton mills, it's
cutters, it's sewers, it's filters and it's
importers and exporters, and the COM
bination tends to the general advan-
tage. We buy where we can buy the
cheapest, and we sell where we can
sell the dearest. All these results come
from the specialization of talent. The
realization must come that some men
can do things better than we. We in
turn in another line of business ought
to do some things better than those
who are not proficient in our trades.
A good gunsmith does not always
make a crack marksman. An expert
yacht builder cannot always be turned
into trustworthy sea captain.
Theintelligent traveller ga theirs infor-
nation wherever he goes. When talk
ing with a motorman upon the street
car, with the farmer in the field, with
the mechanic at his bench, with the
sailor upon the ships deck, with the
engineer in his cab, he can obtain an
swers to questions which he himself
could never solve. He can always find
a man who knows more, in at least
some special field, than he himself
knows, no matter how intelligent the
questioner might be. The servant in
the kitchen in all probability knows
how to bake bread better than her
master, even though the head of the
house may be the chief owner of the
great Pillsbury flour mills, where
thousands and tens of thousands of
bushels of grain are daily turned into
the white substance which forms the
staple of every meal. The skill of the
eminent surgeon is never lessened by
seeing carpenter handling a saw, and
there never comes a time when the
man of ten talents can afford to de-
spise the lessons he may learn from
the man of one talent.
Proficiency being granted to us in
mental or manual abilities, there is
also proficiency given to us in spiritual
abilities. Certain temptations which
assail one sinner do not appeal to an
other sinner. One man may have a
lurking propensity for gambling, an
other for drink, another for licentious-
ness, another for sloth, another for
profanity, another for theft, still an
other for perjury. Some men are born
liars. Parents testify that certain chill
dren in one family have tendency
to falsehood from their cradles; other
children born in the same family never
show disposition to preyaricate. Par
ents can often trace the lies weak
nesses of their children almost from
the time those children began to walk
and talk. They can distinguish certain
satanic characteristics as distinctly as
stranger can tell whether child by
the color of the skin is born from
white of black parents. Of course it is
often great deal harder to tell wheth-
er the white child has black heart or
black skinned child has white heart
than to tell the color of the outside
epidermal covering.
Members of Christian church are
in the sight of God one spiritual fam
lily and therefore have a right to ex-
pect help one from another. Every
shipwrecked mariner has claim upon
every stout keel floating the wide seas.
The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ
cannot be hemmed in by the four walls
of religious edifice. The parable of
the good Samaritan teaches that we
should love our neighbor as ourselves
Our neighbor is not alone the friend
who lives next door. He is also the
stranger of foreign birth who has fall.
en- among the thieves on the road to
Jericho. Any traveller who is naked
ahungered, athirst, any wayfarer who
is lost upon the mountains far ava,
from home, whose guide we can be, is
our neighbor. We as Christians have q
duty to foreign missions as well as tc
home missions, to the savage living il
the jungles of Africa as well as to the
heathen in the back alley half blocl
| away from our kitchen door, to the
waif of the street who has faller
asleep upon our doorstep.
But the words of the text have still
another application. Paul was ad
dressing the members of the Chris
tian churches. Those churches wer'
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