The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-08-08

shadows of the night? Why GO growing
on your way 60 celestial enthronement?
Come out of that cave and sit down in the
warm light OF the Sun of Righteousness.
Away with your odes to melancholy and
Hervey's' Meditations Among the Tombsl"
1 have to say also that we need to put
more spice and enlivenment in our relig-
ious teaching, whether II be in the prayer
meeting or in the Sunday-school or in the
church. We ministers need more fresh
rir 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 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 elaborations 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.
/ promise a high spiritual blessing to
any one who will sing in church and who
will sing so 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 a matter of preference; it is a mat
ter of religious duty. Oh, for fifty times
more volume Of sound than has yet rolled
up from our churchesl German chorals
in German 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 American 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 congregational singing ap-
propriate for churches when in listening
to the temple service of heaven he says:
81 heard a great voice, as the voice OF u
great multitude and as the voice of many
waters and as the voice Of mighty thun-
derings Hallelujah, for the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth"
Join with me in a crusade, giving me not
only your hearts, but the mighty uplifting
of your voices, and l believe we can,
through Christs 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
Balkis would drive all her spice laden
dromedaries into our church music. "Nei-
Sheba gave King Solomon"
Now, | 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 all
sweet spices together. "Oh," you say, 81
have not looked at it as such. l thought
it was a nuisance. 1t had for me a re-
pulsion. / held my breath as though it
were a malodor l have been appalled, at
its advance. i have said, if have any re-
ligion at ALL l want to have just as little
: OF it as is possible to get through with"
Oh, what mistake you have made, my
brotheri The religion of Christ is pres
ent and everlasting redolence. 1t coun-
teracts all trouble. just put 1T on the
stand beside the pillow OF sickness. 1t
catches in the curtains and perfumes the
sitting air. 1t sweetens the cup of bitter
medicine and throws a glow on the gloom
of the turned lattice. 1t is balm for the
temple stung with pain. 1t lifted Samuel
Rutherford into a revelry of spiritual de-
light while he was in physical agonies. 1t
helped Richard Baxter until in the midst
of such 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
ing city. And it is good for rheumatism
and for neuralgia and for low spirits and
| for consumption. 1t is the cathohcon for
all disorders. Yes, it will heal all your
SORROWS.
| Why did you look so sad this morning
! when you came iny 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 ] have been spending, l
. would be inpatient to get down into my
.,.,k Nhn IEa n
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
| You have said: ooh, how beautifully quiet
| it must be in the tomb! / wish l was
/ there'
| | see all around about me widowhood
! and orphanage and childlessness, sadness
disappointment, perplexity. II | could
! ask all those in any audience who have
| felt no sorrow and been buffeted by nc
disappointment could ask all such
to rise, how many would rise? Not one.
| A widowed mother, with her little child
went West, hoping to get better wages
| there, and she was taken sick and died
The overseer of the poor got her body and
! put it in a box and put it in wagon and
|
terry at full trot. The little child, the only
child, ran after it through the streets
| bareheaded, crying: Bring me back my
mother! Bring me back my mother!'
And it was said that as the people looked
on and saw her crying after that which
lay in the box in the wagon, all she loved
on earth-it is said the whole village was
/ in tears. And that is what great many
OF you are doing the dead. Deal
Lord, is there no appeasement for all this
sorrow that | see about me? Yes, the
| thought of resurrection and reunion fai
beyond this scene of struggle and tears
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
any more, neither shall the sun light or
them nor any heat, for the Lamb which
is in the midst of the throne shall lea6
them to living fountains of water, anc
God snail wipe away all tears from Their
eyes" Across the couchcs of your sicl
and across the graves OF your dead fling
this shower OF sweet spices, Queen Balkis
driving up to the pillared portico Of the
house of cedar, carried no such pungency
OF perfume as exhales to-day from the
Lords garden. 1t is peace. 1t is sweet
ness. 1t is. comfort. 1t is infinite satisfac
tion, this gospel commend TO you
May God grant that through your OWE
practical experience you may find that re
ligion's ways are ways of pleasantness anc
that all her paths are paths OF peace; that
il is perfume now and perfume forever
And there was an abundance OF spice
neither was there any such epice as the
Queen OF Sheba gave to King Solomon"
Had spont the 81, 900.
A New York lawyer, speaking OF tn