The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-11-01
MISSION OF PICTURES.
DIVINE SERVICES IN THE BROOKLYN
TABERNACLE.

TABERNACLE.
American Cities Need Great Galleries of
Paintings-3Ion of Wealth Should Build
In the Place of Their Residence Thrones
for American Art.
BRooILTN, Oct. 28.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Tala.;.e.c, d. D., preached at the
iabernacia t'li6 morning. A vast congre-
CATION tt5rnlcd the service. The pastor
e2.poandctl Il chapter about the room of
Imagery i'll Ezekiel, after which the hymn
beginning:
Thine earthly :1aishaths, Lord we love-
But there's liohler rest above,
was sung. Professor Browne presided at
the grand organ and rendered a concerto
In 3 fiat by Handel. The subject OF DIR.
Talnlage's discourse WAS 1.-The Divine
Mission of Ficturcs." His text was Isaiah.
chapter ., parts of the twelfth and SIX
teenth verses: '.The day of tile Lord of
Hosts shall be upon all pleasant pictures
lie said
Pictures are by some relegated to
the realm of the trivial. accidental, SEN
timental or worldly, but my text shows
that God scrutinizes pictures, and
whether they are good or bad, whether
used for right or wrong purposes, is
a matter OF divine observation aud ar
riignment.
That The artists pencil and the en-
graver's knife have sometimes been made
subscrvient to the kingdom of the bad is
frankly admitted. After the ashes and
scoria were removed from Herculaneum
and Pompeii the walls of those cities
discovered to the explorers degradation
in art which cannot be exaggerated.
Satan and all his imps have always
wanted the lingering of the easel; they
would rather have possession Of that
that than the art of printing, for types
are not so potent and quick for evil as pic
lures. The powers of darkness think they
have gained triumph, and they have,
when i'll some respectable parlor or pub
lie art gallery they can hang a canvas
embarrassing to tho good, but fascinat-
ing to the evil.
1t is not in spirit of prudery, but
backed up by Gods eternal truth when /
say that you have no right TO hang in
your art rooms or your dwelling houses
that which would be offensive to good
people if the figures pictured were alive
in your parlor and the guests of your
household A picture that you have to
hang in a somewhat secluded place, or
that in public hall you cannot with a
group of friends deliberately stand before
and discuss, ought to have a knife
stabbed into it at the top and cut clear
through to the bottom and stout finger
thrust in ON the right side ripping clear
through to the left. Pliny, the elder,
lost his life by going near enough to see
the inside of Vesuvius, and the further you
can stand off from the burning crater
of sin, the better. Never till the. books
of the last day are opened shall we know
what has been tho dire harvest of evil
pictorials and unbecoming art galleries.
DeSpoil mans imagination and he be-
comes q moral carcass. The show win
dows of English and American cities in
whsch the low theatres have sometimes
hung long lines of brazen actors and
actresses III style insulting to all pro-
priety, have made broad path to death
for multitudes of people. But SO have
all the other arts been at times suborned
of evil How has music been bedraggled!
Is there any place SO low down in disso-
luteness that into it has not been carried
David's harp, and Handel's organ, and
Gottsehaik 5 piano and Ole Bulls violin
and tho fnta, which though named
after so insignificant thing as the
Sicilian eel, which has seven spots on the
side like flute holes, yet fer thousands of
years has had an exalted mission. Ar
clitecturo, born in the heart of him who
made the worlds. under its arches and
across It's floors what bacchanalian revcl-
ries have been enactedl 1t is not against
any of these arts that they have been sc
led into captivity. What poor world
this would Ike if it were not for what my
text calls pheasant picturesI' ] refertc
your memory and mine when / ask il
your knowledge OF the Holy Scriptures
has not been nightly augmented by the
wood cuts or engravings in the old
family Bible, which father and mother
read out of, and laid on the table in tht
old homestead when you were boys ant
girls The Bible scenes which we all carry
III our minds were not gotten from the
Bible typology, but from the Bible pict
ures. To prove the truth of it In my
own case, the other day / took up thu
old family Bible which l inherited. SURE
enough, what have carried in my mine
of Jacobs ladder was exactly the Bibl,
engraving of Jacobs ladder; and so will
Samson carrying off the gates of GAIA
Elisha restoring tho Shunamite's son
the massacre of the innocents; Chris
blessing little children; the Cruciiixiol
and the Last Judgment My idea of al
these is that of tho old Bible engraving
which ! scanned before could read
word That is true with nine-tenths o
ka n
your foreheads would find that you ar
walking picture galleries. The great in
telligence abroad about tho Bible did no
come from the general reading of tn
book, for the majority of the peopl
read it but little, if they read it at all
but all the sacred scenes have been pu
before the great masses, and not printer
ink but the pictorial art must have th
credit of the achievement. First, painter
pencil for the favored few, and then en-
gravers plate or woodcut for millions ol
nillionsl What overwhelming com
nlentary on the Bible; what re- enforce
ment for patEiarchs, prophets. apostle
and Christ; what distribution of Scrip
tural knowledge of all nations in til
paintings and engravings therefor
of Holman Hunts "Christ in tn
Temple" Paul Veronese's "Magds
len Washing the Feet Of Christ.
Raphael's Michael the Archangel,
Albert Durer's dragon of the Apot
alypse," Michael Angeles ''Plagd
of the Fiery Serpents;' Tintoret'
"Flight into Egypt" Rubens' "Descer
from the Cross" Leonardo da Vinci'
Last Supper" Claude's "Queen {
Shcba;" Bellini's Madonna at Milan;
Ogcagna's Last Judgment" and hur
dreds of miles of pictures If they wen
put in line, illustrating, displaying
dramahzing, irradiating Bible truth
until the Scriptures are not today {
much on paper as ON canvas, not {