The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-08-21
do not doubt their piety. Oh, no! But


they are sitting at feast where the cook
has forgotten to season the food. Every
thing is fiat in their experience and in
their conversation. Emancipated from sin
and death and hell and on their way to a
magnificent heaven, they act as though
they were trudging on toward an everlast-
ing Botany Bay. Religion does not seem
to agree with them. 1t seems to catch in
the windpipe and become tight strangu.
lation instead of an exhilaration. All the
infidel books that have been written, from
not done 80 much damage to our Chris
tianity as lugubrious Christians.
Who wants a religion woven out of the
shadows of the night? Why go growing
on your way to celestial enthronement?
Come out If that cave and sit down in the
warm light of the Sun of Righteousness.
Away with your odes to melancholy and
Hervey' "Meditat lions Among the Tombs!"'
I have to say also that we need to put
ious teaching, 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 80 little vivacity in the pull
pit and in the pew? We want, like the
Lord, to plant in our sermons and exhor-
tations more lilies Of the field. We want
fewer rhetorical celebrations and fewer
sesquipedalian words. and when we talk
about shadows we do not want to say
adumbration, and when we mean queer.
ness we do not want to talk about idiosyn-
crasies, 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 Gin
namon and less gristle. Let this be so in
all the different departments of work to
which the Lord calls us.
Let us be plain. Let us be earnest. Let
us be common sensical. When we talk
to the people in vernacular they can IN
derstand, they will be very glad to come
and receive the truth we present. Would
to God that Queen Balkis would drive her
spice laden dromedaries into all our SER
mons and prayer meeting eXhortations.
More than that, we want more life and
spice in our Christian work. The poor do
not want so much to be groaned over as
sung to. With the bread and medicines
and garments you give them let there be
an Accompaniment of smiles and brisk en-
couragement. Do not stand and talk to
them about the wretchedness of their
the hardness of their lot. All, they know
it better than you can tell them! Show
them the bright side of the thing, if 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 in
spring laugh, and while you send in help,
like the Queen of Sheba, also send in
the spices. There are two ways of meeting
the poor. One is to come into their house
with nose elevated in disgust, as much
in this neighborhood. 1t actually makes
you poor, miserable wretch, and make
the most of il"
I promise a high spiritual blessing to
any one who will sing in church and who
will sing 80 heartily that the people all
around cannot help but sing. Wake up,
all the churches from Bangor to San
Francisco and across Christendom! 1t
is not matter of preference; it is mat
ter of religious duty. Oh, for fifty times
more volume of sound than has yet rolled
up from our churches! German chorals
in German cathedrals surpass u.s., and yet
Germany has received nothing at the hands
of Cod compared with America. And ought
the acclaim in. Germany be louder than
IL
music is appropriate for the drawing
room and appropriate for the concert,
but St. John gives an idea of the sonorous
and resonant congregational singing ap-
propriate for churches when in listening
to the temple service of heaven he says:
II heard a great voice, as the voice of
great multitude and as the voice of many
waters and as the voice of mighty thun.
derings. Halleluiah, for the Lord God
omnipotent reignethp
Join with me in crusade, giving me not
only your hearts, but the mighty uplifting
of your voices, and I believe we can,
through Christ's grace, sing 5000 souls
into the kingdom of Christ. An argument
they can laugh at, a sermon they may talk
down, but 5000 voiced utterance of praise
to God is resistible. Would that Queen
Balkio would drive all her spice laden
dromedaries into our church music. Mel
ther was any such spice as the Queen OF
Sheba gave King Solomon"
Now, I want to impress you with the
fact that religion is sweetness and per-
fume and spikenard and saffron and Gin.
namon and cassia and frankincense and al
have not looked at it as such. I thought
it was nuisance. 1t had for me q re-
pulsion. I held my breath as though it
were malodor. I have been appalled, at
its advance. 1 have said, if 1 have any re-
ligion at all, want to have just as little
Of it as is possible to get through with"
Oh, what a mistake you have made, my
brother The religion of Christ is pres.
ent and everlasting redolence. 1t coun-
teracts all trouble. just put it on the
stand beside the pillow of sickness. 1t
catches in the curtains and perfumes the
sitting air. 1t sweetens the cup of bitter
;o,n fhroUc the Ul0Om
of the turned lattice. II is balm for the
aching side and soft bandage for the
temple stung with pain. 1t lifted Samuel
Rutherford into revelry of spiritual de-
light while he was in physical agonles. 1t
elped Richard Baxter until, in the midst
of such a complication of diseases as per-
haps no other man ever suffered, he wrote
The Saints Everlasting Rest" And it
poured light upon John Bunyan's dungeon,
the light Of the shining gate Of the shin Iiim
and for neuralgia and for low spirits and
for consumption. 1t is the catholicon for
all disorders. Yes, it will heal all your
sorrows.
Why did you look so sad this morning
when you came in? Alas, for the loneli.
ness and the heartbreak and the load that
is never lifted from your SOUL Some OF
you go about feeling like Macaulay when
he wrote, IF I had another month OF
such days as L have been. spending, l
would be impatient to get down into my
little narrow crib in the ground, like
weary factory child" And there have
been times in your life when you wished
you could get out of this life. You have
said, "Oh, how sweet to my lips would be
the dust Of the valley!" and wished you
could pull OVER you in your last slumber
the coverlet of green grass and daisies:
see all around about me widowhood
and orphanage and childlessness, sadness,
disappointment, perplexity. If l could
ask all those in any audience who have
felt no sorrow and been buffeted by no
disappointment-if I could ask all such