The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-02-06

freless January blast, let us not for
get the freless hearth and the thin
garments and the hacking cough and
the rheumatic twinge of those who
through destitution find life in win
ter an agony.
Oh, the might of the cold! The arc
tic and antarctic invading the temper
ate zone! The victories of the frost
as when the Thames in 1905 became
firm as any bridge and the inhabitants
crossed and recrossed on the ice and
booths and places of temporary amuse-
ment were built on the hardened sur
face; as when many years ago New
York harbor was paved with tee so
that the people passed on foot to the
adjoining islands. But the full story
of the cold will never be known. The
lips which would have told it were
frozen and the fingers that would have
written it were benumbed. Only here
and there fact appears. In 1851 the
cold was SO terrific that the wolves en-
tered Vienna. In 1863 it was so cold
that wine was cut with hatchets and
distributed among the soldiers. In
1894 a whole forest was killed by the
cold at Ravenna. In 763 the Black sea
was frozen over. AS we go further
back the frosts are mightier, but as we
come further down the frosts lessen.
The worst seventies have been halted,
and the SHOWS have lost their depths,
and the thermometers announce less
terrific falls of temperature, and the
time will come when the year will be
one long summer of foliage and bloom.
While the worlds moral condition viii!
be reformed, the worst climates will
be corrected. You could not have a
millennium with January blast pos
sible
Behold, also, as it is possible in no
other month of the year, the wondrous
anatomy of the trees in January, the
leaves of the last year all gone and
not so much as bud of new botan-
ical wardrobe appearing, the trees
standing with arms stretched toward
heaven, one of the greatest evidences
of the wisdom and the power of the
and then die, but these great arms are
stretched up toward heaven in silent
prayer for scores of years, now mailed
with ice, now robed in snow or bowling
to the God of the tempests as He
passes in the midnight hurricane. In
July the trees stand clarifying the
earth; in January they stand defying
| the winter. Under the same tree the
child plays with his toy and, growing
| up to manhood, sits under it in senti.
mental or philosophical mood and, hav.
ing passed on to old age, rests himself
under its shade. In these January days
the trees seem to say: ''The leaves that
rustled their music in the last summer
are dead and gone, but the leaves that
will adorn this uncovered brow ano
these bare arms shall have as much
beauty and glory as their predecessors
Only wait. There are beautiful and
lovely things to come in my tree life
as there are beautiful and lovely things
to come in your life, 0 human specta
tor" Oh, the tree! Only the Almighty J
and the Infinite could have made one
Gothic architecture was suggested by
it. But for the arch of it's bough ane
the pointing of its branches the st
Chapeile of Paris and other specimen:
of Gothic arch would never have beer
lifted. No wonder the world has taker
from it many styles of suggestivenes:
the laurel for the victor, the willow
| ha fnr 4
trembling, the cypress for the burial
But, unlike ourselves, they canno
change their place and so stand watch
ing all that passes. Some of them arr
solemn monuments of the centuries
Thank God for trees, their beauty
their shelter, the eir interlacing branche
not only for the trees in June TIM
coronation, but in January privation 0
everything but graceful structure! LIE
the iconoclastic ak not be lifted agains
them. "Woodman, spare that tree"
Behold also in this January mont
the increasing daylight. Last mont
the sun went down at 4:30, but in thi
month the days are getting longer. TIL
sunrise and the sunset are farthe
apart. Sunlight instead of artiticia
light, and there is for our dear old ba
tered earth growing light. ''The day
spring from on high hath visited us.
We shall have more light for the home
more light for the church, more ligh
for the nation, more light for the worl
light OF intelligence, light of comfor
light of rescue, light of fevangelizatior
light from the face of God. light fro1
the throne. But, you say, the light ir
;. creases SO slowly, each day of this jar
uary only one minute longer than il
predecessor, the sun setting the frs
day of January at four O'Clock and
minutes, the sun setting the second da
of January at four o'clock and A mil
utes, the third day of this month tt
sun setting at four o'clock and As mil
utes, the fourth day of January II
sun setting at four o'clock and 46 mi
, utes. This evening it will set at 70,
o'clock and AZ minutes. The day |.
: larges very little, and the reign Of SUI
! light is not much increased, but do N
despise the minute of increasing iigl
: each day of this January, and do NJ
L l& ltryhf