| Sing, O sing, ye heirs of glory! Shout your triumphs as you go: Zion’s gates will open for you, You shall find an entrance through. |
| ’Tis the promise of God, full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe. |
| Though the pathway be lonely, and dangerous too, (sic) Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro’. |
This is poetry such as you find inside Christmas crackers.
Another hymn began:
| One more day’s work for Jesus, One less of life for me! |
I could not help thinking that there would be good employment for a prophet of God, with a stout whip, in the congregations of the so-called faithful of to-day. I have heard them by hundreds shouting at the top of their voices:
| O Paradise, O Paradise! ’Tis weary waiting here; I long to be where Jesus is, To feel, to see him near. O Paradise, O Paradise! I greatly long to see The special place my dearest Lord, In love, prepares for me! |
Knowing something of those people outside the church doors, I have often thought what an edifying sight it would be if the Lord deigned to listen and take a few of them at their word. If the fearless Christ were here on earth again, what crowds of cheats and humbugs he would drive out of the Temple! And foremost, I fancy, would go the people who, instead of thanking their Maker who allows the blessed sun to shine, the birds to sing, and the flowers to grow for them here, howl and whine lies about longing for the joy of moving on to the better world, to the “special place” that is prepared for them. If there be a better world, it will be too good for hypocrites.
After hymn the fifth, Dr. Talmage takes the floor. The audience settled in their seats in evident anticipation of a good time, and it was soon clear to me that the discourse was not to be dull at any rate. But I waited in vain for a great thought, a lofty idea, or refined language. There came none. Nothing but commonplaces given out with tricks of voice and the gestures of a consummate actor. The modulations of the voice have been studied with care, no single platform trick was missing.