The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-02-28

the grocer and the butcher and the baker and say We do not want any more meat or vegetables or bread for the next forty days?' Does 1t mean that all the members of a home shall go without physical nutrition, as pr. Tanner lasted for forty days and Leonard Thress lasted for fifty days, and Rev. c. H. Dalrymple lasted for thirty-nine days and Milton Rathburn lasted for thirty-six days and Estela F. Kuenzel lasted for forty-one days? Oh. no. The habit of fasting. in- spired by boastful folly and the desire of seeing how long we can live without tast- ing food, is just as sinful the opposite extreme of gluttony, to see how much one can eat without utterly destroying the smooth workings of the digestive or gans.
 Spiritual housekeeping does not mean the complete abstinence from physical food. It does mean emphatically the re- consecration and the rededication of the domestic firesde to Jesus Christ through self abnegation. It means that we shall have prayers at the cradle. It means that we shall have prayers nj the bed room and prayers in the parlor and | prayers in the sitting room and prayers in the kitchen and have the dining room spread with a gospel banquet of the
 ''bread of life" If next week you were to entertainRthe king of England or the emperor of Germany, you would turn your home upside down to make 1t at- tractive for the advent of his majesty. Shall we not in the same way. by spirit ual housekeeping. prepare for the enter tainment of our Heavenly King by cast ing out of doors all sinful thoughts and desires which find Judgment in our hearts?
 Preparations for Christ. The Lenten season in the home means simply the spiritual preparation for Christ to visit the home. When Martin Farquhar Tupper, the famous English | poet, came to visit us in Brooklyn we | gave to him the very best room in the | house. We gatherNl together the most | famous literary men of the city to meet | him. At that party Horace Greeley | came, and William Cullen Bryant came and read his ''Thanatopsis" and George | William Curtis came. and I think John l G. Whittier came. I well remember my | brother giving to me Tupper's popular | book, ''Proverbial Philosophy" and say | ing: Read that book. You should know | who Martin Farquhar Tuper is before he | comes. and then you can honor him as | he should be honored" In like manner | the Lenten season in the home is an ap- propriate time for the spiritual prepara- l ton for Christ's coming to tho home. | The children should be told all about Him
 
 as friend. The cook and the cham ] bermaid should be told all about Him. so | that they may know how Christ loved | Martha. the busy cook, as well as the ! gentle Mary who sat at His feet Home | friends should be told all about Him, so | that they also may come in and honor the l divine guest. As we in the Brooklyn | home read and re-read the writings of the I English poet in order to know what his l thoughts might be, so to prepare for the | read and re-read the words which He | should prepare to greet Christ not as a stranger. but as long loved and anx- iously awaited friend.
 For Better Church Life. The Lenten season is an annual plea for | the standardization of the church. Min isters of the different Protestant churches are more and more getting into the custom of going into retreat at | least once year. where by fasting and prayer they may spiritually prepare i themselves for their ecclesiastical minis | trations At least once a year as church ] members we should go into spiritual ''retreat'' In that retreat we should ] call upon our Heavenly Father that the Holy Spirit may bless us In our relation ship with our midweek prayer meetings | and Sunday schools and Christian En- | deavor societies and bless us in our rela- ! tionship to His great church at large. 1 After Jesus Christ drove the money | tempts to secularize the house of God