The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-06-12

| ing themselves in orderly array until
at last this building was the result.
| You have heard much of heresy, and
are inclined to favor the hereto; but
| after all the hereto is wicked per-
son. l am opposed to heretics. Yet
| l must draw the true line between the
| orthodox and the hereto. The sheep
| should be separated from the goats.
And this is the line of demarcat ton:
namely: Do you believe that the visi-
bic or the invisible is the reality?
Which do you believe in, brain or mind,
soul or body? Do you bels@ve that con-
| science is merely 1.-The accrued caution
| OF foregoing generations" or do you
believe that it is the divine spark from
| the altar of God? Listen to the cry
| of Carlyle:
Has the word duty no meaning? Is what
we call duty no messenger and guide. but a
| false, earthly fantasm, made up of desire
and fear, or emanations from the gallow
and from DR.. Graham's celestial bed Fool
| lsh word -monger and motive-grinder that
| in thy logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism
| for the godlke itself, and wouldst fain
| grind me out virtue from the husks of pleas
ure-l tell thee Nay! Is the heroic inspira-
| tion We call virtue but some bubble of the
| blood, bubbing up in the direction others
| profit by? What, then, are the terrors of
| conscience to the diseases of the liver?
| Not on mortality, but on cookery, let Us
| build our stronghold, and there, brandish-
| ing our frying pan as censor, let us offer
sweet incense to the devil, and live at ease
| upon the good things he has provided for
| his elect"
Do you believe that love is but re-
| tinement of feshly desire, or do you
| believe that it will live on when all
flesh has perished, that it will live
| eternally instinct with Gods own life?
| This shall test your orthodoxy. Do
you believe that patriotism, honor,
| truth, self-sacrifce and goodness be-
| long to the same category as chills
and fever? If you do you are hereto.
Do you believe that woman is beau
tiful beast, or does Wordsworth touch
you when he calls her ga spirit, yet a
woman, too?" To you is the universe
dense reality, brutally fixed, vulgar
ly undeniable, and is God but theory
by which to explain it; or is God to
you the one truth and all the universe
is expression? By this / shall know
whether you be heretical or orthodox.
More than this, / shall know by this
whether you be living or dead, for the
apostle tells US that they who do mind
the things of the flesh are not alive.
''To be carnally minded is death; but
to be spiritually minded is life and
peace" ...
She offered him life of idleness and
pleasure, but he answered that he must
die. Then she struck the table with
her clinched fist and let him hear what
she thought of him. $50 you want to
die, that's what you want. That would
not surprise me, if you were alive. Do
you think that you have to lie stiff and
stark with coffin lid nailed down over
you to be dead? Don't you believe
that I stand here and see how dead
you are, Goesta Berling? l see that
you have skull for head, and it
seems to me as if the worms were
creeping out of the sockets of your
eyes. Do you not feel that your mouth
is full of dust? Do you not hear how
your bones rattle when you move?
You have drowned yourself in brandy,
Goesta Berling, and you are dead.
"Thousand devils!" she said, and
laughed softly to herself, at is truer,
what I am saying, than l myself
thought. Don't you believe, Goesta
Berling, that most of the people in this
world are dead. or half dead?"
The majors wife, of Ekeby, and the
Apostle Paul spoke the same truth
There is a death in life that is more
horrid than the death that is simply
going out from this life. 1t is the
death where the spirit is stifled by the
body or by the material things of the
world. Are such dead spirits before
ME this morning? If there be such,
let me cry out to them in the thunder
tones of the Son of God: 81 am the
resurrection and the life. He that be-
lieveth in Me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live again"
The life is more than meat, just as
the body is more than raiment. Do not
forget the invisible realities. Do not
let the clouds obscure your vision nor
the din of things destroy your hear
ing Think of the realities. Think of
them, parents, as you care for your
children's clothes, and neglect not your
children's lives. You mend their
stockings, but do you repair their
spoiled ideas? You provide food for
their stomachs, but do you provide
food for their craving spirits? You
| wish to leave lands and tenements,
things which, ridiculously enough, you
call "real estate" so that they may
be provided for when you die; but do
| you think to leave them honor and
truth and good character?
And think of this to your comfort,
o mother, as you lay away the form Of
| your beloved child in the grave. You
have passed through your hour of
trial. You have cried out without
music, hoarse and discordant grief.
You have reproached God and turned
with bitterness upon the world. But
you forget the realities. It's not your
| child that is laid away in the ground.
That is just the clay clothes the
| child WIRE for awhile: YOU have nut