I know a church where there was no singing except that done by the
choir, save one old Christian man; and they waited upon him by
a committee, and asked him if he would not stop singing, for he
disturbed the choir!
The day cometh when all the churches will rejoice in this department
of service, rightly conducted, and when from all the great audiences
of attentive worshippers will rise a multitudinous anthem.
"O God! let all the people praise thee!" Again: when the city is
redeemed, the low haunts of vice and pollution will be extinguished.
Mr. Etzler, of England, proposes, by the forces of tide, and wind,
and wave, and sunshine, to reconstruct the world. In a book of
much genius, which rushed rapidly from edition to edition, he
says:--"Fellow-men: I promised to show the means of creating a
paradise within ten years, where everything desirable for human life
may be had by every man in superabundance, without labor and without
pay; where the whole face of nature shall be changed into the most
beautiful forms, and man may live in the most magnificent palaces,
in all imaginable refinements of luxury, and in the most delightful
gardens; where he may accomplish without labor, in one year, more than
hitherto could be done in thousands of years; may level continents;
sink valleys; create lakes; drain lakes and swamps, and intersect the
land everywhere with beautiful canals and roads for transporting heavy
loads of many thousand tons, and for travelling a thousand miles in
twenty-four hours; may cover the ocean with floating islands, movable
in any desired direction, with an immense power and celerity, in
perfect security, and with all the comforts and luxuries; bearing
gardens and palaces, with thousands of families, and provided with
rivulets of sweet water; may explore the interior of the globe, and
travel from pole to pole in a fortnight; provide himself with means
yet unheard of for increasing his knowledge of the world, and so his
intelligence; leading a life of continual happiness, of enjoyment yet
unknown; free himself from almost all the evils that afflict mankind
except death, and even put death far beyond the common period of human
life, and, finally, render it less afflicting.
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