The New York herald., 1875-11-29
CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH.
.cHEERFUL RELIGION VERSUS LUoURRIoI


oNE-sERMoN BY REV. W. II. ALGER.
There a large attendance yesterday morning at
the Church Of the Messiah, OF Park and
Thirty fourth street The sermon, preached by the
pastor, Rev w. r. Alger, a cheerful religion versus
lugubrious one, listened TO with the most earnest
attention. God, he began has endowed with won
derful faculties. He has filled habitatons with
goodly treasures He has surrounded with the
seraphic hosts of beauty. Chterfulness is an
excellent prophylactic recipe for varding or invad
ing Ills. happy man is always stronger and more
capable than unhappy one; he is fuller OF vital
ergy. In the normal condition OF things enjoyment is
favorable to virtue while wretchedness is pander
vice. The great
DIVERSITY OF RELIGIONS
in the world may be represented under three forms
First-There is the religion of barbaric superst-
tion. What is that sensational assimilation OF the
dark and portentous phenomenon OF nature. Tho
age tribes who hold this are slaves Of terror, shud
derng and toruring themselves in the rites of their
worship. second-There is the arbitrary religion Of
morbid dogma, What IS that 7 metaphysical as
similation OF the dark and portentous facts Of
life The civilized nations who hold this arc victims
of anxiety, imagining themselves to lie under a
doom which they strive by various artificial TO
avert Finally there is the healthy religion of faith
and love. What is that9 rational assimilation Of
the order and bengnlty OF the universe The en-
lightened and emancpated individuals who hold this,
this wel expressed in the constitution Of HIS works,
and to do IL. and then, enjoying every good He has
placed in their power leave results IN His hands with
out misgivng The spirit of the first form OF religion
natural alarm; OF the second artificial anxiety; of
the third grateful content The first Is tho mild
ligion OF ignorance; the second
TECHNICAL RELIGION OF DISEASE;
the third, the veracious
RELIGION HEALTH
The first is instructive growth Of superstitious i'm
aginaton the next elaborate product OF morbid in
teects but the last is the normal correspondence in
human experience Of the divine plan enacted in nature
and providence-a true, cheerful religion To love your
Maker and your neighbor, do your recognized duties TO
the extent OF ability and with bounding heart
enjoy the world without dread OF Satanic power in
return inherited doom in history, yawning perdi
tion in the futureths is a cheerful religion The fret
fu grief and gloom so frequently met with among men
seem little better than inexcusable petuance when
consider how numerous how far-reaching and
benehcent are the arrangements prepared by the
Creator for securing our happiness The eye never
weares gazing on visions of beauty. The ear never
clogs in listening to strains OF melody. The heart is
surfeted in experiencing emotions of love. The
mind never pals IN searching out truth and contem-
plating mystery. We are placed in communication
with the surrounding realm Of nature and
REINFORCED WITH ALL THE or DELIGHT
gathered there. Shadows pass, landscapes spread
torrents fall, forests wave, mountains loom, oceans
roll and shine In the living mirror Of the mind.
The mighty arrangements made for human enjoyment
show that faith, exultation, abounding joy, not
forcboding and wickedness, are what the Creator
means for And when the whole
reconced in cooperative justice and love instead
Of antagonizlng each other in every direction, this
destiny Will be fulfilled ana every one be happy Alter
referring the pleasures experienced by Newton Beet
hoven and Claude Lorraine In their respective inspra
tional spheres and showing how by reckless
and violation OF Natures laws loses power of
joyng pleasure and further, that the pangs OF pain
really warning voices against evidoing, he pro-
ceeded TO show that suffering is disguised blessing
and that happiness is the reflex accompaniment OF the
healthy condition and action of the faculties of
nature in harmony among themselves and the universe
and that TO carry about in clear and strong body
pure and joyous SOUL full Of delight in the works OF
nature and Of generous sympathy with the welfare OF
men, Is 70 exercise
A CHEERFUL RELIGION
and exemplify tho will OF God in the genuine fulfill
ment of our human destiny. How mistaken, there.
fore well perniclous, he urged, is that dismal
theology which wells the present with gloom and
shrouds the future with horror which depicts this life
the terrible battle ground Of virtue with the nvis
Bile powers OF evil where all should stand In
fear and trembling; which lays the promptings of
and the delights OF the world under ban snarcs
OF the wicked to tempt souls astray which considers
gay music and dancing and mirth as sacriege, and
which teaches that sad countenances doefu voices.
groans and sighs and sackcloth and ashes a
acceptable offering to God than the joyful sound Of
minstresy the smiles Of beaming faces and the in
OF glad and grateful hearts. The influence Of
such faith is bad, II makes religion sorrowiu
pulsvc unnatural thing. II perverts the whole order
Of the moral world. IL makes many persons think
themselves religious when they only superstous,
pous when they are only gloomy, just when they are
only hardhearted