Connecticut western news., 1891-05-06
neither was there any such spices as the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solo,
 

mon "
 THE SPICE OF RELIGION.
 Well, my friends, you know that all theologians agree in making Solomon a type of Christ, and making the queen of Sheba type of every truth seeker; and shall take the responsibility of saying that all the spikenard and cas- sia and frankincense which the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon are nightly suggestive of the sweet spices of our holy religion. Christianity is not collection of sharp technicalities and angular facts and chronological tables and dry statistics. Our religion is compared to frankincense and to cassia, but never to nightshade. It is bundle of myrrh. It is dash of holy light, It is sparkle of cool fountains. It is an opening of opaline gates. It is collection of spices. I Would God that we were as wise in taking spices to our Divine King as Queen Balkis was wise in taking the spices to the earthly Solomon! What many of us most need is to have the humdrum driven out of our life and the hulndrum out of our religion. The American and English and Scottish church will die of humdrum unless there be change.
 An editor from San Francisco few weeks ago wrote me saying he was get ting up for his paper symposium from many clergymen, discussing among other things ''Why do not people go to church?' and he wanted my opinion, and gave it in one sentence, People do not go to church because they can not stand the humdrum." The fact is that most people have so much hum drum in their worldly calling that they do not want added the humdrum of re- ligion. We need in all our sermons and exhorations and songs and prayers more of what Queen Balkis brought to Solomon--nalnely,m more spice.
 The fact is that the duties and cares of this life coming to us from time to time are stupid often and inane and intolerable. Here are men who have been bartering and negotiating, climb ing, pounding, hammering for twenty years, forty years, fifty years. One great long drudgery has their life been. Their face anxious, their feelings be- numbed, their days monotonous. What is necessary to brighten up that mans life, and to sweeten that acid dis position, and to put sparkle into the mans spirits? The spicery of our holy religion. Why, if between the losses of life there dashed gleam of an eter- nal gain; if between the betrayals of life there came the gleam of the un6y- ing friendship of Christ; if in dull times in business we found ministering spirits flying to and fro in our office and store and shop, everyday life, instead of be- ing stupid monotone, would be a glorious inspiration, penduluming be- tween calm satisfaction and high rapt. ure.
 AN INEXPLICABLE MYSTERY.
 How any woman keeps house with out the religion of Christ to help her is a mystery to me. To have to spend the greater part of ones life, as many women do, in planning for the meals, in stitching garments that will soon be rent again, and deploring breakages, and supervising tardy subordinates, and driving off dust that soon again will settle, and doing the same thing day in and day out, and year in and year out, until their hair siivers, and the back stoops, and the spectacles crawl to the eyes, and the grave breaks open under the thin sole of the shoe oh, it is long nonotonyl But when Christ comes to the drawing room, and comes to the kitchen, and comes to the nursery, and comes to the dwelling, then how cheery become all womanly duties. She is never alone now. Mar tha gets through fretting and joins Mary at the feet of Jesus.
 All day long Deborah is happy be- cause she can help Lapidoth; Hannah, because she can make a coat for young Samuel; Miriam, because she can watch her infant brother; Rachel, because she can help her father water the stock :; the widow of Sarepta. because the cruse of oil is being replenished. O woman! having in your pantry a nest of boxes containing all kinds of condi- ments, why have you not tried in your heart and life the spicery of our holy religion2 Martha! Martha! 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 her."
 Imust confess that a great deal of the religion of this day is utterly in- sipid There is nothing piquant or ele- vating about it. Men and women go around humming psalms in a minor key, and culturing melancholy, and their worship has in it more sighs than rapture. We do not doubt their piety. Oh, no. But they are sitting at a feast where the cook has forgotten to season the food. Everything is flat in their experience and in their conversation. Emancipated from sin and death and hell and on their way to a magnificent heaven, they act as though they were trudging on toward an everlasting Botany bay. Religion does not seem to agree with them. It seems to catch m the Wlndplpe and become tight strangulation instead of an exhilara- tion.
 All the iniidel books that have been written, from Voltaire down to Herbert Spencer, have not done so much dam age to our Christianity as lugubrious Christians Who wants a religion woven out of the shadows of the night2 Why go growing on your way to celes- tial enthronement? Come out of that cave, and sit down in the warm light of the Sun of Righteousness. Away with your odes to melancholy and