The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-06-12
REALITIES OF LIFE.
Sermon of Rev. Frank Crane, of the
Peoples Church, Chicago.
He Says the City Is Composed OF
Ghosts-TeIls What Constitutes
the Real ThinEs.-All Visible
Things Are But Signs.

| Az tHe Ieoplt ; CuuICl LII ShiSd6o
Rev. Frank Crane recently preached
sermon from. the subject The Real
| tiles" He took for his text the fol-
| lowing:
! For we look not at the things which are
| seen, but at the things which are not seen;
| for the things which are seen are temporal,
| but the things which are not seen are eter-
| nail. Cor. Ais.
Have you ever seen a city? Have you
ever seen the great city of Chicago?
AS you enter 1t upon the railway train
| you behold miles and miles of cars
| standing upon interminable tracks
| that cover the earth like strands of
| gigantic cobweb; you behold huge
grain elevators, modern pyramids to
| the glory Of commerce; factories,
whose myriad windows make them
| looklike thousand-eyed monsters. You
| walk the streets and gaze up at great
Office buildings, each containing
| restless cityful Of people. You listen
| to the din in the streets, the rush OF
elevated trains, the clang of cable cars,
the rattle of wagons, the inchoate cry
of newsboys and venders, all melting
| into a mighty roar as of huge cata-
ract But-have you seen the city?
No! for the city is composed essen
TALLY of ghosts, invisible, intangible,
| soundless. The city is the wrestling
place of souls. If you could see them!
They are hoping, fearing, praying;
| some are drowning their tattered sem
sibilities in wine; some are growing
straight, sweet, fragrant as lily;
some of them have faces like horrid
devilfish, moving in fierce ugliness; they
are despairing, rejoicing. If you could
see these invisible flames we call souls
you would perceive them running to-
gether sometimes in strange mixture
of fires, making confagrations we call
panic, a strike, a revival of religion.
You read in this Bible that no man
| hath seen God at any time: l say unto
you that no man hath seen a city at
| any time. For the reality is always in
visible, silent.
Have you ever seen a home? Yonder
is house that is called home. It's
walls are of granite, there are French
windows, Persian rugs, lace curtains,
food imported from every cline, beds
of carved mahogany, draped with silk
and spread with fine linen. Do these
things constitute a home? No; for I
have been in the parlor and found it
human cold storage vault; in the dim
ing-room the inmates poison them
selves day after day upon suspicion and
| estrangement; in the beautiful beds
all night long there toss wretched
| creatures who look now at the ghost
of dead desire grinning at the head of
the bed, and now look and listen at the
raven of despoiled love that sits and
croaks at the foot of the bed
Where is the real home? It is where
hearts ease is. 1t is not where we lay
off our clothes, but where we lay off
our cares. The walls of real home are
not built of granite, but of truth and
loyalty. Unpleasant sounds, the fric-
tion of living, are not deadened by rugs
laid on polished floors, but by forbear-
ance, by patience. The curtains that
screen the sacred household gods from
the eyes of the curious are not of lace,
they are woven of discretion. The
food in the real home is not meat and
drink, but unselfishness and thought
fulness; these sustain love. The bed is
not prepared with down and damask,
but with "a conscience void of offense
toward God and toward man." The
light of the real home is not the sun
by day nor the electric globe by night,
but it is love, shining always in dear
eyes, burning always in true hearts,
clear and lambent, unextinguished by
any gusts of passion or misfortune.
Peace and security are not there be-
cause of an insurance policy, but be-
cause of simple faith in the good God
who watches over Israel and neither
slumbers nor sleeps. You cannot see
this kind of home unless you look
at the things which are not seen and
are eternal.
Did you ever see man? Many a
specimen of the genus homo, Carlyle's
forked radish, walks about who is not
man. 1t takes more than whiskers
and clothes to make a man. If you
would make man upon Gods plan
you must first take, as the fundament-
al ingredient, courage; courage to do
his work faithfully, through all dis
couragement; then, patience to GO on
through defeat; then, strength to
stand always for principle and to de-
spise policy; then, largeness of heart,
so that he may do no mean thing; then,
gentleness to the erring; then, loyalty
to friends and fairness to foe; and last
| of all, you must make him to be a good
| friend with God. Such a man may be
a hunchback, blind, deaf, deformed,
| yet will he be man.
Did you ever have the good fortune,
when you were a boy, to fall in love
with good woman twice your own
age? Such was my good fortune. She
was very homely; her complexion was
bad, her mouth was screwed around to
the side of her face, her hair was red
not Titan red, but an offensive red.
| I was Is and she was IS. She was a
| school teacher. She talked to me as an
equal and made my studies glow with