Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-05-14

can make coat for young Samuel Wir;ap,
because she can watch her infant brother,
hashei because she can help her father
water the stock; the widow of Sarepta. be-
cause The cruise of oil is being replenished
" womanl having in your pantry q nest If
boxes containing all kinds of condiments
why have You not tried in your heart and
life the spicery Of our holy religion,
Marthal Martial thou art careful and
troubled about many things: but one thing
Is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good
part. which shall not be taken away from
herr
/ must confess that great deal of the re-
helon OF TINS day Is utterly insipid. There
is nothing piquant or elevating about it,
Men ana women go around hummiDg psalms
IN q MINOR key, and culturing melancholy,
and their " orship has In it more signs than
rapture. We do not doubt their piety Oh,
no. But they are sitting at d feast where
the cook has forgotten to season the food.
Everything is fiat in their experience and in
their conversation. Emancipated from sin
and death and hell, and on their way to q
magnificent heaven, they act as though they
were trudging on toward an everlastin O
Botany Bay. Religion does not seem to
agree with them. 1t seems to catch in the
Windplpe and become tight strangulation
instead of an exhilaraton
All the infidel books that have been writ
ten, from Voltaire down to Herbert Spen.
Ger, have not done SO much damage to our
Christianity as lugubrious Christians. Who
wants religion woven ont Of the shadows
of the nightS Why go growing on your way
to celestial enthronement9 Come out OF
that cave and sit down in the warm light of
the Sun of Righteousness. Away with your
odes to melancholy and Hervey's "AIedita-
tions Among the Tombs."
Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry;
We're marching through EmmaDuels ground
To fairer worlds on high.
l have to say. also, that we need to put
more spice and enlivenment in our religious
teaching, whether it be in the prayer meet
ing, or in the Sabbath school, or in the
church. We ministers need more fresh air
and sunshine in our lungs and our heart and
our head. Do you wonder that the world is
so far from being converted when you find
SO little vivacity in the pulpit and in the
pew? We want, like the Lord, TO plant i'll
our sermons and exhortations more lilies of
the field. We want fewer rhetorical elabora-
tions and fewer sesquipedalian words; and
when we talk about shadows, we do not want
to say admiration; and when we mean
queerness, we do not want to talk about
idiosyncracies: or if stitch in the back, we
do not want to talk about lumbago, but in
the plain vernacular preach that gospel
which proposes to make all men happy, hon
est victorious and free.
In other words, we want more cinnamon
and less gristle. Let this be so in all the
different departments of work to which the
Lord calls us. Let us be plain. Let us be
earnest. Let us be common sensical. When
we talk to the people in vernacular they
can understand they will be very glad to
come and receive the truth we present.
Would to God that Queen Balllis would
drive her spice laden dromedaries into
all our sermons and prayer-meeting exhor-
tations-
More than that, we want more life and
spice in our Christian work. The poor do
not want so much to be groane1 over as sung
to. With the bread and medicines and the
garments you give them, let there be an ac-
compartment of smiles and brisk encourage
ment. Do not stand and talk to them about
the wretchedness of their abode, and the
hunger of their looks, and the hardness of
their i St n Ah Sey know S better s than you you
of the thing, if there be any bright side.
Tellthem good times will come. Tell them
that for the clsiitrcn OF Sod there~is in-
mortal rescue. Wake them up out of their
stolidity by AN inspiring laugh and while
you send in help ike the Queen of Sheba,
also send in the spices.
There are two ways of meeting the poor.
One is to come into their house with nose
elevated in disgust as much as to say: Il
don't see how you live here in this neighbour
hood. 1t actually makes me sick. There is
that bundle; take it, you poor, miserable
wretch and make the most of it.o-~Another
way is to go into the abode of the poor in
manner which seems to say: "The blessed
Lord sentme. He was poor himself 1t is
not more for the good am going to try TO do
you than it is for the good You can do me-"
Coming in that spirit the gift will be as aro-
matte as the spikenard on the feet of Christ,
and all the hoveis in that alley will be fra
grant with the spice.
We need more spice and enlivenment in
our church music. Churches sit discussing
whether they shall have choirs, or precen-
tors, or organs or bass yios, or comets. /
say, take that which will bring out the most
inspiring music. Ii Yves had half as much
zeal and spirit in our churches as we have in
the songs of our Sabbath schools it would
not be long before the whole earth would
quake with the coming God Why, in most
churches ninetent of the people do not
sing, or they sing SO feebly that the people
at their elbows do not know they are sing
ing People mouth and mumble the praises
of God but there is not more than one OUT
of a hundred who makes "a joyful noise"
unto the Rock of Our Salvation. Some
times, when the congregation forgets Itself,
and is all absorbed in the goodness of God or
the glores OF heaven, get an intimation of
what church music will be a hundred years
from now, when the coming generation shall
wake up toits duty.
promisea high spiritual blessing to any
one who will sing in church, and who Will
sing SO heartily that the people all around
cannot help but sing. Wake upl all the
churches from Bangor to San Francisco and
across Christendom. it is not matter OF
preference. it is matter of religious duty.
On. for fifty times more volume OF sound.
German chorals in German cathedrals sur
mass us, and yet Germany has received
| nothing at the hands of God compared with
| America, and ought the acclaim in Berlin be
| louder than that in Brooklyn? Soft, long
| drawn out music is appropriate for the draw
| ing room and appropriate for the concert,
hut st. John gives an idea OF the sonorou'
and resonant congregational singing appro
pirate for churches when, III listening 10 Tue
| temple service of heaven, he says: Il heara
a great voice, as the voice of a great multi,
tude. and as the voice OF many waters, ana
as the voice of mighty thunderings. Halle
luiah for the Lord God omnipotent reign
eth
Join with me in crusade, giving me nor
only your hearts, but the mighty uplifting
If vour voices. and believe we can, throngh
Christ's grace sing fifty thousand souls inpo
the Kingdom of Christ. An argument tney
can laugh at u sermon they can talk dowii,
INIT vast audience joining in one antnem y !
irresistible. Would that Queen baikis wouiu
drive all her spice leaden domedaries lh.o
our church music Neither was Iuefe s any