The Brookhaven leader., 1891-05-14


hunger of their looks and the hardness
of their lot. Ali they know IL better
than you can tell them. Show them
the bright side of the thing, IL there
be any bright side. Tell them good
times will come. Tell them that
for the children of God there is
immortal rescue. Wake them up
out of their stolidity by an inspiring
laugh, and while you send in help,
like 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 a nose elevated in dis
gust. as much as to say: 81 don't see
how you live here in this neighborhood.
1t actually makes me sick. There is
that bundle-take it, you poor, misera-
BILE wretch, and make the most of it."
Another way is to go into the abode OF
the poor in a manner which seems to
say: "The blessed Lord sent me. 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-" Com
ing in that spirit, the gift will be as
aromatic as the spikenard on the feet of
Christ, and all the novels in that alley
will be fragrant with the spice.
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; l 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 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 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 hun
dred who makes "a joyful noise" unto
the Rock of our Salvation. Some
times when the congregation forgets it
self, and is all absorbed in the good
ness of God, or the glories of Heaven,
l get an intimation of what church
music will be a hundred years from
now, when the coming generation shall
wake up to its duty.
l promise a high spiritual blessing to
anyone who will sing in church, and
who will sing so heartily that the peo-
pie all around can not help but sing.
Wake up! all the churches from Bangor
to San Francisco and across Christen-
dom. 1t is not a matter of preference;
it is matter of religious duty. Oh, for
fifty times more volume of sound.
German chorals in German cathe-
drals surpass us, and yet Ger
many has received nothing at
the hands of God compared with
America; and ought the acclaim in Ber
lin be louder than that in Brooklyn?
Soft, long-drawn-out music is appro-
pirate for the drawing-room and appro-
pirate for the concert; but st. John
gives an idea of the sonorous and reso-
nant congregational singing appro-
pirate for churches when, In listening
to the temple service of Heaven, he
says: 81 heard a great voice as the
voice of a great multitude, as the voice
of many waters, and as the voice of
mighty thunderings Hallelujah, for
the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"
Have you read of the Tai Mahal in
India, in some respects the most majes-
tic building on earth? Twenty thou
sand men were twenty years in build
ing it. 1t cost about sixteen million
dollars. The walls are of marble, in
laid with cornelian from Bagdad, and
turquois from Thibet, and jasper from
the Punjaub, and amethyst from Per
sia; and all manner of precious stones.
A traveller says that it seems to him like
the shining of an enchanted castle
of FURNISHED silver. The walls
are two hundred and forty-five feet
high, and from the top of these springsa
dome thirty more feet high, that dome
containing the most wonderful echo the
world has ever known; SO that ever and
anon travellers standing below with
flutes and drums and harps are testing
that echo, and the sounds from below
strike up and then come down as it
were the voices of angels all around
about the building. There is around it
a garden of tamarind. and banyan, and
palm, and all the floral glories of the
ransacked earth. But that is only
a tomb of 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! Foundations of gold! Arches
of victory! Cap-stones of praise! And
a dome in which there are echoing and
re-echoing the hallelujahs of the ages.
And around about that mansion is a gar
den-the garden of God-and all the
springing fountains are the bottled
tears of the church in the wilder
ness, and all the crimson of the flow
ers is the deep hue that was caught
up from the carnage of earthly martyr
doms, and the fragrance is the prayer
of the saints, and the aroma puts into
utter forgetfulness the cassia and
spikenard, and the frankincense, and
the world-renowed spices which Queen
Balkis of Abyssinia flung at the feet Of
King Solomon.
When shall these eyes Thy Heaven built
walls
And pearly gates behold,
Thy buiwarks, with salvation strong,
And streets of shining goldS
Through obduracy on our part, and
through the rejection of that Christ who
makes Heaven possible, I wonder if
any of us will miss that spectacle?
fear! The queen of the south will rise
up in Judgment against this generation
and condemn it, because she came from
the uttermost parts of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,