The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-06-02

anum, said dying Mirabeau: give
me more laudanum, that I may not
think OF enternity and what is to
Il come And dying Hobbies said. 81
leave my body to the grave, and my
soul TO the great perhaps" It was
the discord OF an infdeIs life breaking
down Low into the jargon Of despair; but.
the Gospel makes the death Of the
christian q Selah between redemption
and enthronement. tsAlmost Well.,,
said dying Richard Baxter; almost
we'll s Play thosenotes over again
those notes which have been SO great
delight and solace to me- said the
! dying Christian Mozart. sNone but
Christ, none but Christ" exclaimed
dying Lambert. '4
! next speak OF the Selah of empha-
SIS. EWald, the German orientalist
and eologlan, says that this word
means ascend; and that wherever YOU
md 1T, ne says, you must look after
the incubation of the voice, and Won
must put more force into your utter
ance. 1t is a Selah of emphasis. Ali
my friends, you and need to correct
our emphasis. We put too much en-
phasis on this world and not enough
on SOD and the next world. People
think these things around us are so
important, the things of the next are
not worthy Of our consideration.
The first need for some of us is to
change our emphasis. Look at
| Wretchedness on a throne. Napoleon,
Whlleyet emperor of France, sat down
detected, his hands over his face. A
LAD came in with a tray of food, and
said, Eat, it will do you good" The
emperor looked up and said, ''you
are from the country" the lad replied,
yes" "Your father has q cottage
and few acres Of ground?" eyes,
"Ihere is happiness said the detect
| 60 emperor. All! Napoleon never
put the emphasis in the right place
until he was expiring at St. Helena.
on the other hand, look at satisfac.
tion amid the worst earthly disad-.
vantage. L never saw until I was
blind, said a christian man. II nev-
er knew what contentment was while
had my eyesight, as I know what
content is now that have lost nv.
eyesight: Iafirm, though few would
credit it, that I would not ex-
change my present position and cir
| cunstances for my circumstances
before l lost my eyesight." That
man put the emphasis.
IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
We want to put less stress upon
this world, and more stress upon our
God as our everlasting portion. DAY.
id had found out the nothingness of
this world and the all-suficiency of
God: Notice how he interjects the
Selahs. ''Trust in the Lord at all
times; ye people, pour out your
| hearts before Him. God is refuge
for us. Selah." BLESSED be the Lord
who daily loads us with benefits,
even the God of our salvation. Sc
lah." ''The Lord shall count when he
| writes up the people, that the man
was born there. Selah." &c.
But when. speak of the Selah of
emphasis must notice it as start
ling, a dramatic emphasis. It has in
| the "hark," the "hist of the drama.
That weakening and arousing en-
phasis we who preach and instruct
need to use more frequently. The
sleepiest audiences in the world are
religious AUDIENCES. #
You Sabbath school teachers ought
to have more of the drama attic ele-
ment in your instructions. BY graphic
scripture scene, by anecdote, by de-
scriptive gesture, by in1personation,
urge your classes to right action. We
want in all our schools and colleges
and prayer-meerings, and in all our
attempts at reform, and in all church
es, to have less OF the style didactic
and more of the style dramatic.
Oh! we want in all our different de-
partments of usefulness-and I ad-
dress hundreds of people who are try
ing to do goodbye want
MORE OF THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT
and less of the didactic. The tendency
in this day is to drone religion, to
whine religion, to can't religion, to
moan religion, to croak religion, to
sepulchrize religion; when we ought
to present it in animated and
spectacular manner.
| What we want, ministers and lay
men, is to get our sermons and our
exhortations and our prayers out of
the old rut. see a great deal of dis
cussion in the religious papers about
why people 90 not come to church.
They do not come because they are
not interested. The old hackneyed
| religious phrases that come moving
down through the centuries will never
arrest the masses. What we want
today, you in your sphere and I in
my sphere, is to freshen up. People
do not want in their sermons the
flowers bought at the millinery shop,
but the japonicas wet with the morn
ing dew; nor the heavy bones of ex-
tinct megatherium OF past ages, but
| the living reindeer caught last August
at the edge OF Schroon lake. We want
to drive out the drowsy, and the pro-
sale, and the tedious, and the hum
drum, and introduce the brightness
and vivacity, and the holy sarcasm,
and the sanctified wit, and the cpl
grammatic power, and the blood-red
earnestness, and the fire of religious
zeal, and I do not know of any way
e ~ L I 4. L !