The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1901-08-10

groaned over as sung to. With the
bread and medicines and garments
you give them let there be an ac-
compa niment of smiles and brisk en-
couragement. Do not stand and talk
to them about the wretchedness of
their abode, and the hunger of their
looks, and the hardness of their lot.
All, they know 1t 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.
We need more spice and enlivenment
in our church music. Churches sit
discussing whether they shall have
choirs or precentors or organs or bass
viols or comets. say take that which
will bring out the most inspiring mu-
sic. II we had half as much zeal and
spirit in our churches as we have In
the songs Of our Sunday schools, it
would not be long before the whole
earth would quake with the coming
God. Why, nine-tenths Of the people
in church 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 hundred who makes a joyful
noise unto the Rock of Our Salvation.
Sometimes, when the congregation
forgets itself and is all absorbed in
the goodness Of God or the glories OF
Heaven, / get an intimation of what
church music will be a hundred years
from now, when the coming genera
ton shall wake up to its duty.
Now, 1 want to impress you 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, ~ have not
looked at 1t as such. ] thought 1t
was a nuisance. 1t had for me re-
pulsion. held my breath as though
1t were malodor. / have been APP
palled at its advance. / have said
II have any religion at all want
to have just as little of IL as posi-
BILE to get through with" Oh, what
mistake you make, my brotherI
The religion of Christ is a present
and everlasting adolescence. 1t coun-
teracts all trouble. just put 1t on the
stand beside the pillow of sickness.
It catches in the curtains and per-
fumes the sitting air. 1t sweetens
the cup of bitter medicine and throws
glow on the gloom of the turned
lattice. 1t is balm for the aching
side and soft bandage for the tenn
pie stung with pain. 1t lifted Samuel
Rutherford into n revelry of spiritual
delight while he was in physical ag-
onies. 1t helped Richard Baxter un-
til, in the midst of such a complica-
ton of diseases as perhaps no other
man ever suffered, he wrote 1.-THE
Saints Everlasting Rest" and 1t
poured night upon John Bunyan's
dungeon-the light of the shining
gate of the shining city.
Have you read of the TAI Mahal, in
India, in some respects the most ma
jestic building on earth? Twenty
thousand men were 20 years in build
ing it. 1t cost about $16,000,O00. The
walls are of marble inlaid with car
nelian from Bagdad and turquoise
from Thibet and jasper from the Pun
lab and amethyst from Persia and
all manner of precious stones. A trav-
eler said that it seemed to him like
4. 80 noctIe
of FURNISHED silver. The walls are
245 feet high, and from the top OF
these springs dome 30 more feet
high, that dome containing the most
wonderful echo the world has ever
known, so that ever and anon trav-
elers 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
1t 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 1t Ia
tame compared with the grandeurs
which God has builded for your living
and immortal spirit.
Oh, home of the blessed! Founda-
tions of gold! Arches of victoryl
Capstones of praise! And dome in
which there are echoing and re-
echoing the halleluiahs of the ages!
And around about that mansion is a
garden, the garden of God, and all
the springing fountains are the bot
tied tears of the church in the wilder
ness and all the crimson of the
flowers is the deep hue that was
caught up from the carnage of earth
ly martyrdoms and the fragrance is
the prayer of all the saints and the
aroma puts into utter forgetfulness
the cassia and the spikenard and the
frankincense and the world-renowned
spices which Queen Balkis of Abyss
sinia flung at the feet of King Solo
mon.
when shall these eyes thy heaven built
walls
And peariy gates behold.
Thy bulwarks, with salvation strong.
And streets Of shining gold7
Through obduracy on our part and
through the rejection of that Christ
who makes Heaven possible wonder
- n n