News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-05-07

alley Will be fragrant with the spice.
SPICE NEEDED IN CHURCH MUSIC.
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 comets. | say take that which will
bring out the most inspiring music If
we had half rs 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 nine-tenths of the peo-
pie do not sing, or they sing so feebly
that the people at their elbows do not
know they are singing. People mouth
and humble 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 good
ness of God or the glories of heaven, l
get an intimation of what church mu-
sic will be a hundred years from now,
when the coming generation shall wake
up to its duty.
promise a high spiritual blessing to
any one who will sing in church, and
who will sing SO heartily that the PEG
pie all around cannot help but sing
Wake up! all the churches from Bangor
to San Francisco and across Christen-
dom. 1t is no matter of preference, it
is q matter of religious duty. Oh, for
fifty times more volume of sound. Ger
man chorals in German cathedrals sur
pass 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 Brook
lyn? Soft, long drawn out music is
appropriate for the drawing room and
appropriate for the concert, but St.
John gives an idea of the sonorous and
resonant congregational singing appro-
pirate for churches when, in listening
to the temple service of heaven, he
says: Il heard a great voice, as the
voice of q great multitude, and as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice
ofmighty thunderings. Hallelujah, for
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
A CRUSADE PROPOSED.
Join with me in a crusade, giving me
not only your hearts but the mighty
uplifting of your voices, and believe
we can, throagh Christ's grace, sing
fifty thousand souls into the kingdom
of Christ. An argument they can laugh
at, a sermon they may talk down, but
vast audience joining in one anthem
is irresistible. Would that Queen Balkis
would drive all her spice laden drome-
diaries into our church music. Neither
was there any such spice as the queen
of Sheba gave King Solomon"
Now want to impress this audience
with the fact that religion is sweetness
and perfume, and spikenard and SAT
from and cinnamon and cassia and
frankincense and all sweet spices to-
gether ''Oh," you say, II have not
looked at it as such. l thought it was
a nuisance; it had for me a repulsion;
held my breath as though it were
malodor; l have been appalled, at its
advance; l have said, If I have any re
ligion at all, l want to have just as lit
tie of it as is possible TO get through
with" Oh, what mistake you have
made, my brother. The religion of
Christ is present and everlasting red
olence. 1t counteracts all trouble.
Just put it on the stand beside the pill
low of sickness. T. catches in the cur
tains and perfumes the sitting air. 1t
sweetens the cup of bitter medicine
and throws glow on the gloom of the
turned lattice 1t is a balm for the
aching side, and soft bandage for the
temple stung with pain.
1t lifted Samuel Rutherford into a
revelry of spiritual delight while he was
In physical agonies. 1t helped Richard
Baxter until, in the midst of such
complication of diseases as PERTAINS no
other man ever suffered, he wrote 'sThe
Saints Everlasting Rest, > and it poured
LIGHT upon John Bunyan's dungeon
the light of the shining gate of the
shining city-and it is good for rheu-
matisn, and for neuralgia, and for low
spirits, and for consumption. 1t is the
catholicon for all disorders. Yes, it
will heal all your sorrows.
Why did you look so sad today 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
spending, | would be impatient to get
down into my little narrow crib in the
ground like a 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 valley" and wished you could pull
over you in your last slumber the GOV
erlet of green grass and daisies. You
have said: "Oh, how beautifully Quiet
it must be in the tomb. | wish l was
there" l see all around about me
widowhood and orphanage and child
lessness, sadness, disappointment, per.
plexity. If l could ask all those to
rise in this audience who have felt no
sorrow, and been buffeted by no disap-
pointment, if | could ask all such to
rise how many would rise? Not one.
SOME ILLUSTRATIONS.
A widowed mother with her little
child went west, hoping to get better
wages there, and she was taken sick
and died. The overseer of the poor
got her body and put it in a box, and
put it in a wagon and started down
the street toward the cemetery at full
trot. The little chiId-the only child
ran after it through the streets, bare
headed, crying; Bring me back my
motherl Bring me back my mothern'
And it was said that as the people
looked on and saw her crying after
that which lay in the box in the wagon
all she loved on earth-it is said the
whole village was in tears. And that is
what a great many of you are doing
chasing the dead Dear Lord, is there
no appeasement for all this sorrow that
see about me? Yes, the thought of
resurrection and reunion far beyond |
his scene of struggle and tears. "They |
shall hunger no more, neither thirst |
my more, neither shall the sun light |
IN them, nor any heat; for the Lamb |
which is in the midst of the throne
hall lead them to living fountains of
water, and God shall wipe away all
ears from their eyes"
Across the touches of your sick, and
lcross the graves of your dead, | fling
his shower of sweet spices Queen
8alkis, driving up to the pillared por-
leo of the house of Cedar cnrrind IA