The Iola register., 1891-05-08


stitching garments that will soon be
rent again, and deploring breakages and
supervising tardy subordinates. and
driving off dust that soon again will set
tie, and doing the same thing day in
and day out and year in and year out,
until their hair silvers, and the back
stoops, and the spectacles crawl to the
eyes, and the grave breaks open under
the thin sole Of the shoe-O, it is long
monotony.
| must confess that a great deal ol
the religion OF this day is utterly in
sipid There is nothing piquant or
elevating about it. Men and women &C
around huu1ming psalms in minor
key, and culturing melancholy, and
its worship has in it more sighs thar
rapture. We do not doubt their piety
10, no. But they are sitting at a feast
where the cook has forgotten to season
the food. Everything is fat in their
Experience and in their conversation.
Emancipate from sin, and death, and
hell, and on their way to magnificent
heaven, they act as though they were
trudging on toward an everlasting
Botany Bay.
We need more spice and enlivenment
in our church music. Churches sit dis
cussing whether they shall have choirs
or precentors, or organs, or bass-viols.
or cornets: / say, take that which will
bring out the most inspiring music. II
we had half as much zeal and spirit in
our churches as we nave 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, nine-tenths OF the people dc
not sing: or they sing so feebly that the
people at their elbows do not know that
they are singing. People mouth and
humble the praises of God; but there is
not more than one out of hundred who
makes 'joyful noise" unto the Rock
of our Salvation. Sometimes when the
congregation forgets itself, and all is
absorbed in the goodness of God, or the
glories of heaven, get an intimation oil
what church music will be hundred
years from now, when the coming gen.
GRAFTON will wake up to its duty.
Now, want to impress this audience
with the fact that religion is sweetness
and perfume, and spikenard, and saffron,
and cinnamon, and cassia, and franklin
cense, and. all sweet spices together.
| 90" you say, 81 have not looked at il
as such. thought it was anuisance: il
had for me repulsion: held my breath
as though it were malodor: | have been
appalled, at its advance: | have said. il |
have any religion at all want to have
| just as little of it as possible to get
through with" Oh, what a mistake
you have made, my brother. The relig-
ion OF Christ is present and everlast.
ing redolence. 1t counteracts all trouble
Just put it on the stand beside the Pill
low of sickness. 1t catches in the cur
tains and perfumes the sitting air. 1t
sweetens the cup of bitter medicine and
| throws a glow on the gloom of the
turned lattice. 1t is balm for the ach-
ing side, and a soft bandage for the tenn
pie stung with pain. 1t lifted Samuel
Rutherford into a revelry of spiritual
delight while he was in physical ago
nies. 1t helped Richard Baxter until.
in the midst OF such a complication OF
diseases as perhaps no other man ever
suffered, he wrote "The Saints Ever
lasting Rest" And it poured light upon
John Bunyan's dungeon-the light of
the shining gate of the shining city.
And il is good for rheumatism, and for
neuralgia. and for low spirits, and for
consumption: it is the catholicon for all
disorders. Yes, it will heal all your
SORROWS.
Why did you look so sad to-day when
you came in? Alas, for the loneliness
and the heartbreak, and the load that
is never lifted from your soul. Some
of you go about feeling like Macaulay
when he wrote: IF | had another
month of such days as | have been
I 1,a 20
down into my little narrow crib in the
ground like weary factory child" And
there have been times in your life when
you wished you could get out OF this
life. You have said: ''Oh, how sweet
to my lips would be the dust of the val
ley" and wished you could pull over
you in your last slumber the coverlet of
greer grass and dasies. You have
said: ''Oh, how beautifully quiet it
must be in the tomb. l wish | was
| there" l see all around about me wild
owhood. and orphanage, and childless-
ness; sadnCsi, Disappointment perplex-
ity. If | could ask all those to rise in
this audience who have felt no sorrow,
and been buffetedby no disappointment
if could ask all such to rise, how
many would rise? Not one.
Have you read of the Tai Mahal in
India, in some respects the most ma jes-
tic building on earth? Twenty thous-
and men were twenty years in building
it. 1t cost about SIG, 600, 600. The walls
are of marble, inlaid with cornelian
from Bagdad. and turquoise from
Thiber. and jasper from the Punjaub.
ane amethyst from Persia, and all man
ner of precious stones. A traveller says
that it seems to him like the SHINING of
an enchanted castle OF FURNISHED silver.
The walls are 245 feet high. and from
the top of these spring a dome 80 more
| feet high, that dome containing the
most wonderful echo the world has
ever known. so that ever and anon
travellers stand below with flutes, and
drums, and harps, are testing that
echo, and the sounds from below strike
up and then comes down as if
| it were the voices of angels ali
around about the building. There
is around it garden OF
tamarind, and banyan. and palm, and
all the floral glories of the ransacked
earth. But that is only the tomb of a
dead empress. and it is tame compared
with the grandeurs which God has
builded for your living and immortal
spirit. o. home of the blessed. Foun-
dations of gold! Arches of victory.
Capstones of praise. And a dome in
which there are echoing and re-echoing
the halleluiahs OF the ages. And around
about that mansion is a garden-the
garden OF God-and all the springing
fountains are the bottled tears of the
church in the wilderness. and all tie
crimson of the flowers is the deep hue
that was caught up from the carnage of
earthly martyrdoms. and the fragrance
is the PRAYER of all the saints, and the
aroma puts into utter forgetfulness the