The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1901-08-09

evating about it. Men and women go
around humming psalms in minor
key and cultivating melancholy. and
their worship has in II more signs
than raptures. We do not doubt their
piety. Oh, no! But they are sitting at
a feast where the cook has forgotten
to season the food. Everything Is fiat
in their experience and in their con-
versation. 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 ever
lasting Botany Bay. Religion does not
seem to agree with them. 1t seems to
catch in the windpipe and become a
hilaration. All the infldel books that
have been written, from Voltaire down
TO Herbert Spencer, have not done so
much damage to our Christianity as
lugubrious Christians.
Put In More Spices.
have to say also that we need to
put more spice and enlivenment in our
religious teaching, whether it be in the
prayer meeting or in the Sunday
school or in the church. We minis
ters 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 plant in our sermons and ex-
hortations more lilies of the field. We
want fewer rhetorical Celebrations and
fewer sesquipedalian words, and when
we talk about shadows we do not want
tosay admiration, and when we mean
queerness wo do not want to talk
the back we do not want to talk
about lumbago; but, in the plain YER
nacular 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 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
understand, they will be very glad to
come and received the truth we present.
Would to God that Queen Balkis would
drive her spice laden dromedaries into
all our sermons 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 accompani-'
ment of smiles and brisk encourage
ment. Do not stand and talk to them
about the wretchedness of their abode,
and the hunger of their looks, and 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 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
spices. There are two ways of meet
ing the poor. One is to come into their
house with a nose elevated in disgust,
10
you live here in this neighborhood. 1t
actually 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. 1t is not more for
the good l am going to try to do you
than it is for the good that you can do
me-" Coming in that spirit, the gift
will be as aromatic as the spikenard
on the feet of Christ, and all the
novels on that alley will be fragrant
with the spice.
Singing as Religious Duty.
I 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 Ban
gor to San Francisco and across
1t is not a matter of
preference. 1t is a matter of religious
duty. Oh, for fifty times more the
volume of sound than has ever yet
rolled up from our churches! Ger
man chorals in German cathedrals sur
pass us, and yet Germany has received |
nothing at the hands of God compared |
with America. And ought the ac-
claim 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
and resonant congregational |
singing appropriate for churches when !
n listening to the temple service of |
heaven he says: 81 hear a great
Toice as the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of
many waters, and as the voice of
mighty thunderings. Halleluiah, for