Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-05-07

church will die of huiadrum unless there
be change.
An editor from San Francisco few weeks
ago wrote me saying he was getting ap
for his paper symposium from many
elergymen, discussing among other things
"Why do not people go to churchY"
and he wanted my opinion, and ! gave It
in one sentence. People do not go tochurch
because they cannot stand the humdrum. y
The fact is that most people have SO much
| bumdrum in their worldly calling that they
I do not want to have added the hamdrum
of religion We need in all our sermons
and exhortations and songs and prayers
more of what Queen Balkis brought to
Solomon-namely, more spice
LIFE Is HUMDRUM.
The fact is that the duties and cares of
I, this life, coming to us from time to time,
are stupid often and inane and intoler-
able Here are men who have been barter
ing and negotiating, climbing, pounding,
hammering for twenty years, forty years,
fifty years. One great long drudgery has
their life been Their face anxious, their
feelings benunbed, their days monotonous.
What is necessary to brighten up that
mans life, and to sweeten that acid dispo-
sition, and to put sparkle into the mans
spiritss The spicery of our holy religion.
| WHY. if between the losses of life there
dashed CLEAN of an eternal gain; II be-
tween the betrayals of life there came the
CLEAN Of the undying friendship of Christ;
if in dull times in business we found min
istering spirits flying to and fro in our
office and store and shop, everyday life
instead of being a stupid monotone, would
be glorious inspiration, penduluming be-
tween calm satisfaction and high rapture.
How any woman keeps house without
the religion OF Christ to help her is mys-
terry to me. To have to spend the greater
part of ones life, as many women do, in
planning for the meals, in stitching gar
ments that will soon be rent again, and de-
ploring breakages and supervising tardy
subordinates and driving off dust that
soon again will settle, and doing the same
thing day in and day out, aud 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-oh, it is long mon
otonyl But when Christ comes TO the
drawing ROOM and comes to the kitchen,
and comes 10 the nursery, and comes IN
the dwelling, then how CHEEKY becomes all
womanly duties. She is never alone now;
Martha gets through fretting and joins
Mary at the feet of Jesus
All day long Deborah is happy because
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 Sa.
repta, because the cruise of oil is being se.
pleuished. O womanl having in your
Il 4. .t..tt. rnll ffAdS
of condiments, why have you not tried IN
your heart and life the spicery Of our holy
religionf 'Marthal Marthal thou art care
full 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"
SOME RELIGION IS INsIPID.
must confess that a great deal of the
religion of this day is utterly insipid.
There is nothing piquant or elevating
about IT, Men and women go around
humming psalms in a minor key, sand
culturing melancholy, and their worship
has in il more signs than rapture We 10
. not doubt their piety. Oh, no. But they
are sitting Mt a feast where the cook has
forgotten to season the food. Everything
is fiat in their experience and in their con
yersation. Emancpated from sin and
death and hell, and on their way TO mag
nifeent heaven, they acS as though they
were trudging on toward an everlasting
Botany bay Religion does not seem &c
agree with them. It seems to catch in the
windpipe aud become II tight strangulatior
> instead OF an exhilaration.
All the infdel books that have been writ
|, ten, from Voltaire down to Herbert Spen-
= Ger, have not done so much damage Il
our Christianity as lugubrious Christians
Who wants religion woven out OF The
shadows of the nighty Why 20 growing
on your way to celestial enthronement'
t. Come out of that cave and sit down in the
warm light of the Sun of Righteousness
Away with your odes to melancholy anc
Hervey's "Meditations Among the Tombs
Then let our songs abound.
= And every tear be dry;
4 We're marching through Emmanueli
ground
To fairer worlds on high.
. have to say, also, that we need to pu
4 more spice and enlivenment in our relig
{ ious teaching, whether it be in the praye
= meeting, or in the Sabbath school, or il
t the church We ministers need more fresi
! air and sunshine in our lungs and on
r heart and our head. Do you wonder tina
the world Is so lar from OeinS ConNerte'
3 when you find so little vivacity in the pull
. Dit and in the pewS We want, like the Lord
+ to plant in our sermons and exhortation
d NOR. lilies Of the field. We want fewe
rhetorical Celebrations and fewer sesqui
' pedalian words; and when we talk abou
/ shadows, we do not want to say adumbra
ton; and when we mean queerness- we d.
not want to talk about idiosyncracies; or
e a stitch in the back, we do not want Z
i talk of lumbago, but in the plain vernacu
r lar preach that gospel which proposes Z
+ make all men happy, honest. victoriou
2 and free.
2 In other words, we want more cinnamon
2 and less gristle. Let this be so in all th
e different departments of work to which tn
Z Lord calls u.s. Let us be plain. Let us b
earnest. Let us be common sensical
/ When we talk to the people in vernacu
i lar they can understand they will be yer
e glad to come and receive the truth we pre-
! sent. Would to God that Queen Balki
:. would drive her spice laden dromedarie
}, into all our sermons and prayer meetin
: exhortations.
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