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THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. The house which God directed the children of Israel to erect for His worship was the most beautiful and costly building in all the camp of Israel. Its description, reeorded by inspiration, is intended to impress the reader that even in the day of poverty and trial Clod's place of wor ship is to be kept beautiful. We venture to say that churches as a whole are kept in a worse state than any other public buildings. Espe cially is this true in the country and villages. Once a year a committee of good women will meet, and with brush and broom clean up the house of God ami the surroundings. Hut little attempt is made to keep the grounds or the buildings handsome. AW have even known ministers in despair to ask Presbytery to meet with them in order to shame the people into 'putting a coat of paint on the walls and get off the ten-vear accumulation of grime on the windows. The architecture of many of our churches is of the most painfully ugly kind, and even when an artistic committee desires to accept a beau tiful and tasty plan, some parsimonious soul rises up to remark, "We cannot afford to spend money in ornamentation." What Pres byterian sins have been committed in the name of "simplicity" ? till abject poverty of design has prevented us from worshipping the great Artist in a beautiful way? Churches ought to look like churches and not like barns or schoolhouses, nor jails. The acoustic properties need not be sacrificed at all, and the artistic conserved. The psycho logical state of the soul has much to do with reception of the message. Great evangelists know that the music preceding the sermon makes the sermon effective. Even opposition, as when Henry Ward Beecher stood before a hissing audience in Nashville soon after the Civil War, is not bad, and is far better than dull, flat indifference, for human nature is such that when it rebounds from enmity and is won over by courage it goes as far the other way. So we have been in some hideous churches that deaden the message. Par better be out of doors in a brush arbor, or under the lofty and artistic trees. Do the deacon's boards ever appropriate anything in the annual budget for beautifying the grounds of the church? "Hut there is dan ger of worshipping the creature rather than the Creator." "Religion will become sensu-. ous." These and other excuses are alleged as reasons for such baldness of architecture and neglect of common laws of sanitary cleanliness that men are unconsciously driven to beli6ve in God as a God of disorder. The God who paints the glories of the rosebud and fashions the setting of an every-day sun so artistically that only the blunted-minded savage does not look up and love, cannot delight in that which is disorderly or uncouth. The tendency of all heathen worship is to glorify the hideous. These squatty monkeys or hideous billikens that Christian people orna ment their parlors with are but samples. Every heathen God is a monstrosity from any point of view. A beautiful and well-kept church will not make a worldly people. Tender and loving care of building and grounds will not magnify heathenism, but both will uplift the mind and soul of the believer to higher and holier living. If our cities are having a "paint-up and clean up campaign," by all {neans let it begin at ? the house of God. And the next time you build a church follow the divine command and k f ? ? example and make it the most "beautiful house in tlie whole countryside. A. A. L. Contributed SABBATH OBSERVANCE. By Rev. J. A. Seott, 1). D. TCzekiel 20:12: "I gave them my Sahbaths to be a sign between me and them that lliey might know that 1 am the Lord that sanctify them." (A sermon preached before Roanoke Presby tery and published by request of the Presby tery.) These words were spoken by the Lord God. Tliey were addressed to His ancient people Is rael. The occasion of the message was that Israel was in deep trouble, enduring the chas tisement of God because of sin. And now God, through llis prophet, uttered this testimony as to their guilt and this call to repentance. Brethren, T wish to preach about Sabbath observance, and I will nse these words for our text. There is today need that the claims of the fourth commandment be asserted. We have drifted far away from the strict observ ance of God's day that marked the lives of our pious ancestors. Today the passenger and freight trains run on the Sabbath day and are used for travel and traffic by many church members as well as by the ungodly. Today the post offices are open and mail is delivered and the secular papers as well as business letters are gotten and read by church members and by others. Today the owners of automobiles are using them Wgelv for "joy riding" and travel on the Sabbath, to the neglect of church attendance and relig ious work. Many church members have grown remiss and careless about the Sabbath. And ungodly and worldly men have been embold ened by their remissness to assail the Sabbath and to attempt to break down the legal bar riers that protect it. The Christian Sabbath is assailed and is in danger! The theme of our text is The Place That the Sabbath Has in a Christian's Life. ? 1. now has it come to pass that the Sabbath is being broken? "Why do the members of the church use the trains on Sabbath for travel? Why do church members make business trips on the Sabbath? Why do they use the Sunday mail and the Sunday editions of secular pa pers ? The answer must be they do not, think how their conduct dishonors the Lord. Or they have been misled by the example of careless ministers and church officers. Or they have not been instructed in the home life as to the sanctity of the Sabbath and then duly to keep it. Or they have "lost their first love" for Jesus and his cause. Or they are being spir itually enervated and corrupted by worldly prosperity and the pleasures of this life. Whatever be the true explanation of the un faithful conduct of Christians in regard to God's day, they need to give ear to the earnest testimony of God uttered in my text. 2. We note that the message, of God is sent first to His people, admonishing them of their sin and calling them to repentance. This is as it should be! Sinners do not know how to enter into the holy pleasures and duties of Sabbath keeping. The day is a weariness to them and they are prone to break it; but Chris tians should keep the day. Their very posi tion demands it! ? (1) They are called "the friends of God."" If God's law is broken and God's name is dis honored by those who carelessly violate the Sabbath, shall not these "friends of God" be very careful to observe God's holy day? (2) They are called the "salt of the earth." Their conduct gives tone and direction to the conduct and views of the ungodly about them. Shall they not be very careful to so observe God's day that they shall influence the people about tlieni to do so likewise? "Hut if the salt have lost its savor wherewith shall it he salted? It is fit neither for the land nor for the dughill; but men cast it out!" (3) They are rendering service to God. That is the life of the Christian! Shall not the ser vant obey the directions and commands of his master? If so, the Christian owes obedience to the fourth commandment. And his violations of the Sabbath call for God's admonition and rebuke. And so our text is addressed to the people of God. Insofar as they have been remiss or disobedient they are guilty and "judgment must begin at the house of God !" 3. As God addresses His people in regard to Sabbath breaking He asserts the authority of the fourth commandment. "I gave them my Sabbaths." There are two solemn assertions: (1) God declared and enacted the Sabbath, and (2) the day belongs to Him. It is evident that this statement refers to the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. There God came down in cloud and tire upon the quaking mountain to declare to His people the duty that He required of them. The divine au thority and holiness are embodied in the fiery law. He uttered the Ten Commandments in the hearing of the assembled tribes, and wrote the words with His own finger upon the tables of stone and gave them to Moses. His holy law ?tands forever! An integral part of that law is the fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." It stands with the same au thority as do the other nine commandments. It can no more pass away and cease to bind human life than can the first commandment or the second, or the third, or the fifth, or the ?sixth, or the seventh, or any other. It is a part of God's law, based in essential duty and asserted by divine command. Men may break it, but if they do they sin. But some one will say, "The Christian's Sabbath is the first day of the week, not the seventh as the Sabbath." That is true! And the change of the day was made by the direction of the Lord Jesus and by the teaching of the inspired apostles, as is abundantly shown in the New Testament Scriptures. The day of the week was changed by the "Lord of the Sabbath" and his divinely guided apostles; but the fourth commandment remains unchanged and its authority is- undi minished, as to keeping God's day holy! 4. In our text God asserts the covenant meaning of the Sabbath and His holy purpose in imposing it upon His people: "I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between them and me, that thay might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." The symbolism of the words is evident, e. g. : A married woman wears her wedding ring. It is to her a sign of the plighted troth between her and her hus band. So the Sabbath day is the ring upon the finger of the Church, the "bride of Christ,". . The battle flag of U. S. is to our soldiers a sign of country and duty and patriotism. As they go forward into battle they will follow the flag, they will defend it, they will, if need be, die to protect it from capture or dishonor! The Sabbath is the battle flag of the sacra mental host of GAd 1 Shall Christians dishonor the Sabbath or permit it to be trampled in the