The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1891-05-06

ligion. The American, and English and
Scottish church will die of humdrum
unless there is a change An editor
from San Francisco few weeks ago
wrote me saying he was getting 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 to have added the humdrum
Of religion. We need in all our SER
mons and exhortations and songs and
prayers more of what Queen Ballsis
brought to Solomon, namely, more
spice.
The fact is that the duties and cares
OF this life, coming TO us from time to
time, are often stupid, and inane, and
intolerable. Here are men who have
been bartering, and negotiating, climb
ingr pounding, hammering for twenty
years, forty years, fifty years. One
great long drudgery had their lives been.
Their faces anxious, their feelings be-
numbed, their days monotonous. What
is necessary to brighten up that mans
life and TO sweeten that acid disposi-
ton, and TO put sparkle into the mans
spirits? The spicery Of our holy reli-
gion. Why, II between the losses of
life there dashed CLEAN Of an eternal
gain; II between the betrayals Of life
there came q CLEAN Of undying friend
ship Of Christ; If in dull times in bust
ness we found ministering spirits flying
to and fro in our Office and store and
shop, everyday life, instead of being q
stupid monotone, would be glorious
inspiration, pendulumning between
calm satisfaction and high rapture.
How any woman keeps house without
the religion of Christ to help her is a
mystery to me. To have to spend the
greater part of ones life, as many wo-
men 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 set
tie, and doing the same thing day in and
day out, and year in and year out, until
her 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-.0, it is long mo-
notony! But when Christ comes to the
drawing-room, and comes to the kitchen,
and comes to the nursery, and comes to
the dwell ing, then how CHEEKY become
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 in
FAINT brother; Rachel, because she can
help her father water the stock; the
widow Of Sarepta, because the cruise of
oil is being replenished. o woman,
having in your pantry nest of boxes
containing all kinds Of condiments, why
have you not tried in your heart and
life the spicery of our holy religion?
Martial 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."
must confess that a great deal OF
the religion Of this day is utterly in
sipid. There is nothing piquant or ele-
waiting about IL. Men and women go
around humming psalms in a minor key,
and culturing melancholy, and their
worship has in IL more sighs than rap
ture. We do not doubt their piety. o,
no. But they are sitting at a feast
where the cook has forgotten to season
the food. Everything is fat in their ex-
perience and In their conversation.
Emancipation 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 Bot
any bay. Religion does not seem to
agree with them. II seems TO catch in
the wind-pipe and become tight stran-
gulation instead OF an exhilaration. All
the infidel books that have been writ
ten, from Voltaire down TO Herbert
Spencer, have not done so much dam
age to our Christianity as lugubrious
Christians Who wants religion wo-
ven out Of the shadows Of the night2
Why go growing on your way to celes-
tial enthronement2 Come out of that
cave and sit down in the warm light Of
the Son Of Righteousness. Away with
your odes to melancholy and Hervey's
"Meditations Among the Tombs."
Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry;
We're marching through Emmanuel's ground
To fairer worlds on high.
have TO say, also, that we need TO
put more spice and enlivenment In our
religious teaching; whether 1t be in the
prayer meeting or In the Sabbath
school, or In the church. We ministers
need more fresh air and sunshine in our
lungs, and our heart, and our head.
Do you wonder that the world is so far
from being converted when you find 50
little vivacity In the pulpit and In the
pew2 We want, like the Lord, TO plant
In our sermons and exhortations more
lilies Of the field. We want fewer rho
torical Celebrations, and fewer sesquip-
edalian words; and when we talk about
shadows, we do not want TO say adum.
bration; and when we mean queerness,
we do not want 10 talk about idiosyn.
crasies; or II stitch in the back, we
do not want TO talk Of lumbago; but, In
the plain vernaoular, preach that gos'
pol which proposes 10 make all men