The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-03-31
FAITH.


upon the earth and kissed bloom and fra
GRANGE and verdure to life, the spring time
has been the evidence and justification of
Faith, the test of it annually triumphant,
the parable of it annually repeated, the
familiar lesson of it taught to every genera
ton.
Eight weeks ago the ground was bare,
sodden or hard. The trees we're gaunt,
dark outlines without the faintest peeping
Of bud or sprouting of tender leaf.
Silence and stiffness were over the woods
gardens and fields were barren and cold
and looked to be dead. Yet we knew that
presently the crocus and the jonquil would
appear in places where no sign or promise
of them was visible, would gather from
earth and air, sunshine and dew, the sub
stance and the texture of sturdy golden
banners, to be Haunted in the scowling face
of winter. None of us doubted that the
trees would CLEAN out in faint and pallid
nimbus of green and then in the full glory OF
many varying shades. Memory of spring
times gone by told US that in the forests
the violets would exhale their fragrance,
that amid the rustling brown shrouds OF
the dead leaves of last year the little wild
flowers would come to carpet vista and
avenue, to cluster about the columns OF
natures first and own temples.
In the fall while winter was coming, in
the winter while its chill yet bit, at the
very first breath of the spring, we buried
seeds-perchance of grain or some other
seed. Dissect these seeds as We would,
weigh them as we might, peer into the dust
and body of them as we could with micro
scopes, we could see nothing of their life,
discover nothing of its principle. Yet we
knew that when the gladness and the tears,
the warmth and brightness from heaven
and the rain from the clouds had come in
their order that the spring would be here,
the time of springing and rising, waking
and resurrection and blossoming. We
could not know how, for we are ignorant of
the story of the least and youngest of the
blades of grass freshly come last night.
We did know and we do know that warmed
and called to life by the far away power,
responsive to the bidding coming mysteri-
ously through the many millions of miles
of space, the seeds answered and came
from their graves in endless forms of beauty
and usefulness. We knew power would be
given them to find and draw from the un-
seen all the elements necessary for their
completion after their kind.
With this inexplicable miracle-miracu-
lous because the result and the work of
powers beyond our knowledge, of forces
battling our discovery, of laws We UNDER
stand but could not establish and can not
change or evade; not miraculous because
it is all part of our daily lives and common
experience and the meeting of our neces-
sities-we are familiar. Yet it is hard for
us sometimes to believe that some power
we can not see or know or comprehend is
working and controlling and directing,
through us and for US. In darkness and
gloom and storm we cannot believe it to be
possible that presently light, sunshine and
warmth will be all about US. When life
seems barren, when silence broods where
music sang, when there is no sign of life
and beauty and hope seem black and dead,
we can not realize that the elements of all
these are about US, awaiting the changing
time and season; and will be woven by the
omnipotent law into banners of triumph
and glory, will breathe gently forth upon
the air the fragrance of love and peace and
contentment, fling with wide prodigality
the hues of flower and leaf across all the
landscape. Burying our loves and hopes,
seeing them lifeless to US and laid away,
we never can quite learn to know that the
life of them lives somewhere beyond the
range of our thought and yearning and
searching; and in the good time will an
swer to the smiling and the calling and the
tear drops and shine forth radiant and
strong.
Who knows the cycles or the orbits of
the ages or the DEGREES of the laws that
created space and eternity and systems?
The Power in the sight of which thousand
years are but as yesterday established
year too vast for our thought year the
lays of which are ages and the minutes
centuries and that its completion and fru-
ton are ordained from the beginning. It
nay be that the spring time of this year
'ame nineteen hundred years ago, follow
ng the winter of darkness and oblivion,
vars and floods. Ignorance and horror q nd