Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-08-22

1
cause the cruise of oil is being reeplenished.
| | must confess that great deal of the
religion of this day. is utterly insipid.
| There is nothing piquant or elevatng
about it. Men and women go around
| humming psalms in minor key and cul-
| tivating melancholy. and their worship
| has in it more sighs than raptures. We
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. Emancpated from sin
and death and he'll and on their way to
| magnificent heaven, they act as though
| they were trudging on toward an everast-
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
Voltaire down to Herbert Spencer, have
| not done so much damage to our Chris
| tianity as lugubrious Christians.
| Who wants religion woven out of the
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 and
| Hervey' Meditation Among the Tombs."
l have to say also that we need to put
more spice and enlivenment in our relg-
ious teaching, whether it be i'll 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 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
| 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 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
| ter of religious duty. Oh. for fifty times
more volume of sound than has yet rolled
up from our churches! German chorals
i'll German cathedrals surpass us, and yet
Germany has received nothing at the hands
of God compared with America. And ought
|
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:
Il heard great voice, as the voice of a
great multitude and as the voice OF many
waters and as the voice OF mighty thun-
derings. Hallelujah, for the Lord God
| omnipotent relgneth!'
Join with me in 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 a 5000 voiced utterance of praise
| to God is resistble. Would that Queen
dromedaries into our church music. ''Nei..
| ther 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 elm
sweet spices together. Oh You say, II
| have not looked at it as such. / thought
| it was nuisance. 1t had Tor me re-
pulsion. | held my breath as though it
were malodor. l have been appalled, at
| its advance | 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 a mistake You have made, my
brother! 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 gow on the gloom
of the turned lattice. 1t is balm for the
| aching side and a soft bandage for the
temple stung with pain: 1t lifted Samuel
| Rutherford into revelry of spiritual de-
light while he was in physical agones. 1t
helped Richard Baxter until, in the midst
OF such complication OF diseases as per-
haps no other man ever suffered, he wrote
"1'he Saints Everlasting Rest" And it
poured light upon John Bunyan 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 catholicon for
all disorders. Yes, it will heal all your
sorrows.
Why did you look SC, 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 l had another month of
such days as l have been spending, l
little narrow crib in the ground, like a
weary factory child And there have
been times in your life when yon 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! wish was
there!"
see all around about me widowhood
and orphanage and child,essness, sadness,
| ,txr l. / nn,tIh
ask all those in any audience who have
felt no sorrow and been butfeted by no
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 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!''