The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-11

l OH. put they are SltliHg dt Il IedSt where the cook has forgotten to sea- son the food. Everything Is flat in their experience. and in their converr sation. Emancipation from sin and death and hell and on their way to magnificent heaven. they act as though they were trudging on toward an ever lastinb Botany Bay. Religion does not seem to agree with them. It seems to catch in the windpipe and become | tight strangulation instead os an ex- hiliration. All the infidel books that have been written. from Voltaire down to Herbert Spencer. have not done so much damage to our Christianity as lugubrious Christians. wha wants religion woven out of the shadows ot | the night? Why go growing on your | way to celestial enthronement? Come | out of that cave and sit down in the | warm light of the Sun of Righteous | ness. Away with your odes to melan- choly and Hervey's "Meditations | Among the Tombs.''
 Then let our songs abound
 And every tear be dry,
 We're marching through Emmans uel's ground
 To fairer worlds on high. Put in More Spices.
 | I have to say also that we need to put more spice and enlivenment in our religious teachings. whether it be in the prayer meeting or in the Sunday 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 so little vivacity in the pulpit and in the pew? We want, like the Lord, to plan in our sermons and exhortations more lilies of the field. We want few | CT rhetorical elaborations and fewer sesquipedalian words. and when we talk about shadows we do not want to say adumbration. and when we mean queerness We do not want to talk about idiosyncrasies. or If a stitch in | the back we do not want to talk about lumbago; but. in the plain vernacular of the great masses. preach that gospel which proposes to make all men happy honest, victorious and free. In other | words, we want more cinnamon and less gristle. Let this be so in all the different departments of work to which l the Lord calls us. Let us be plain. Let us be earnest. Let us be common sensicol. When we talk to the people in a vernacular they can understand, they will be very glad to come and re- l God that Queen Balkis would drive her spice laden dromedaries into all our sermons and prayer meeting exhorta- | tions!
 More than that. we want more life and spice in our Christian work. The poor do not want so much to be groan- ed over as sung to-. Wit hthe bread and medicines and garments you give them let there be an accompaniment of smiles and brisk encouragement. Do not stand and talk to them about the wretchedness of their abode. and the hunger of their looks. and the hard ness of their lot. An. they know 1t bet ter than you can tell them. Show them the. bright side of the thing. If tere be any bright side. Tell them good times will come. T@ them that for the children of God there Is i'm mortal 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 spice There are two ways of meeting the poor. One is to come into their house with a nose elevated in disgust, as much as to say: 1T don't see how you live here in this neighborhood. It &C., | tually makes me sick. There Is that bundle. Take it. you poor, miserable wretch. and make the most of It." An other 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. It is not more for the good I am going to try to do you than 1t Is for the good than you can do me-" Coming in that spirit the gift will be as aromatic as the spike nard on the feet of ChRist. and all the novels on that alley will be fragrant with the spice.
 We need more spice and enlivenment l in our church music. Churches sit dis cussing whether they will have choirs or precentors or organs or bass viols or comets. I say take tat which will bring about the most inspiring music | If 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 al 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 hundred who make 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 or heaven. I get~an intimation of what church music will be a hundred years from now, when the coming generation shall wake ur to its duty.
 Singing as a Religious Duty. | I promise a high spiritual blessing to any one who will sing in church and who will sing so heartily that the peo- pie all around cannot elp but sing. Wake up all the churches from Ban l gor to San Francisco and across Chris tendon! It is not matter of prefer ence. It is a matter of religious duty. Oh. for 5 0times more the volume O: sound than has ever yet rolled up from our chruches! German chorals in Ger man cathedrals surpass us. and yet Germany has received nothing at the | hands of God compared with America | And ought the acclaim in Germany be louder than that of America? Soft, long drawn out music is appropriate for the drawing room and appropriate for the concert, but St. John gives an idea of the sonorous and resonant con- gregational singing appropriate for | churches when in listening to the tenn pie service of heaven he says: 'I heard a great voice as the voice of a great multitude and as the voice of many waters. and as the voice of mighty l thunderings. Halleluiah. for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"
 Join with me in crusade. giving me not only your hearts. but the n&ghtY