Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-08-09

shadows of 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 Righteousness:
| Away with your odes to melancholy ana
| Heryey's" Meditation Among the Tombs!
! more spice and enlivenment in our rellg-
ious teaching, whether it be. in the prayer
meeting or in the Sunday school or III 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 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 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
namon and less gristle. Let this be so in
all the different departments of work to
which the Lord calls us.
| l promise 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 matter of preference; it is mat
ter of religious duty. Oh, for fifty times
more volume of sound than has yet rolled
in German catbedrals sdrpass u.s., 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 congregational singing APP
propriate for churches when IN listening
to the temple service of heaven he says:
| "T heard great voice, as the voice OF
great multitude and as the voice of many
waters and as the voice of mighty, thun,
behring's Hallelujah, for the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth!' ~
Join with me in O crusade, giving me not
only your hearts, but the mighty uplifting
of your voices, and / 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 ntterance OF praise
| TO IOu IS TcSlSllDlC. NFOuiu ehoo
Balkis would drive all her spice laden
dromedaries into our church music. Mel.
Their was any such spice as the queen OF
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 al
sweet spices together. "Oh,'' you say, II
have not looked at it as such. l thought
| "a hod For MI Q
pulsion. l held my breath as though 1t
were a malodor. l have been appalled, at
its advance. 1 have said, if 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
brothert 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. IL
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 a soft bandage. Tor the
temple stung with pain. 1t lifted Samuel
Rutherford into revelry of spiritual de.
light while he was in physical agonles.. IL
helped Richard Baxter until, in the midst
of such complication of diseases as per
haps no other man ever suffered, he wrote
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
ness and the heartbreak and the load that
is never lifted from your soul! Some OF
YOU 90 about feeling like Macaulay when
he wrote, eff 1 had another month OF
such days as I have been spending, l
would be impatient to get down into my
little narrow crib in the ground, like a
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.
You have said: ooh, how beautifully quiet
it must be in the tomb! I wish l was
there!"
/ see all around about me widowhood
and orphanage and childlessness, sadness,
disappointment, perplexity. If | could
ask all those in any audience who have
felt no sorrow and been buffeted by no
disappointment-if l 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 box and put it in wagon and
started down the street toward the ceme-
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,
| a ,,,o, cold that tho ppopla 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--chasing the dead. Dear
Lord, is there no appeasement for all this
sorrow that / see about me? Yes, the
thought of resurrection and reunion far
beyond this scene of struggle and tears
"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
them nor any heat, for the Lamb which
is in the midst of the throne shall lead
them to living fountains of water, and
God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes" Across the couches of your slcl,
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
ness. It is comfort. II is infinite satisfac.
ton, this gospel / commend to you.
May God grant that through your own
practical experience you may find that re.
iigion's ways are ways Of pleasantness and
that all her paths are paths of peace; that
it is perfume now and perfume forever
And there was an abundance of spice;
neither was there any such spice as the
Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon"