The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-11-09
RELIGION AND ART.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the In
fuence of Pictures
A Strong Plea for the Proper Recognition
of Talent-lnfluence OF Good Pictures
Their Divine Mission-The Gal
lery Of Heaven.

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Lord of Hosts shall be upon all pleasant
pictures" He said:
Pictures are by some relegated to the
realm Of the trivial, accidental, senti-
mental or worldly, but my text shows
that God scrutinizes pictures, an whether
they are good or bad, whether used for
right or wrong purposes, is a matter of di-
vine observation and arraignment. The
divine mission Of pictures is my subject.
That the artists pencil and the engraver's
knife have sometimes been made sub
servient 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 dis
covered to the explorers a degradation in
art which can not be exaggerated.
Satan and all his imps have always
wanted the lingering of the easel; they
would rather have possession of that than
the art of printing, for types are not so
potent and quick for evil as pictures. The
powers of darkness think they have gained
a triumph-and they have-when in some
respectable parlor or public art gallery
they can hang a canvas embarrassing to
the good, but fascinating to the evil. 1t is
not in a spirit of prudery but backed up
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 pic
ture that you have to hang in a somewhat
secluded place, or that in public hall you
can not with group Of friends deliberate
ly stand before and discuss, ought to have
knife stabbed into it at the top and cut
clear through to the bottom, and a stout
finger thrust in on the right side ripping
clear through to the left. Never till the
books of the last day are opened shall we
know what has been the dire harvest of
evil pictorials and nnbecoming art gall
leries. Despoil a mans imagination and
he becomes a moral carcass. The show
windows of English aNd American cities
in which the low theaters have sometimes
hung long lines of brazen actors and
actresses in style insulting to all propriety
have made broad path to death for multi
tudes 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 dissoluteness that into it has
not been carried David's harp and Han
del's organ and Gottschalk's piano and
Ole Bulls violin? And the flute, which,
though named after so insignificant a thing
as the Sicilian eel, which has seven spots
on the side like flute holes, yet for thou
sands of years has had an exalted mission.
Architecture, born in the heart of Him
Who made the worlds, under its arches
and across its floors what bacchanalian
revelries have been enacted! 1t is not
against any of these arts that they have
been so led into captivity.
What poor world this would be if it
were not what my text calls pleasant
pictures" l refer to your memory and
mine when / ask if your knowledge of the
Holy Scriptures has not been nightly
augmented by the wood cuts or engrav-
ings in the old family Bible, which father
and mother read out of, and laid on the
table in the old homestead when you We're
BOYS and girls. The Bible scenes which
we all carry in our minds were not gotten
from the Bible typology, but from the
Bible pictures. To prove the truth of it in
my own case, the other day l took up the
old family Bible which inherited. Sure
enough, what have carried in my mind
of Jacobs ladder was exactly the Bible
engraving of Jacobs ladder; and SO with
Samson carrying off the gates of GAIA;
Elisha restoring the Summarizes son; the
massacre of the innocents; Christ blessing
little children; the crucifxion and the
last Judgment. My idea of all these is
that of the old Bible engravings which l
scanned before could read a word.
That is true with nine-tenths of you. If
/ could swing open the door of your fore
heads would find that you are walking
picture galleries. The great intelligence
abroad about the Bible did not come from
the general reading of the book, for the
majority of the people read it but little,
if they read it at all; but oil the sacred
scenes have been put before the great
masses, and not printers ink but pictorial
art must have the credit of the achieve
ment. First, painters pencil for the ia
vored few and then engraver's plate or
wood cut for millions on millions. What
overwhelming commentary on the Bible,
what reinforcement for patriarchs, proph-
cts, apostles and Christ, what distribution
of scriptural knowledge of all nations, in
the paintings and engravings therefrom
of Holman Hunts 'Christ in the Temple;"
Paul Veronese's ''Magdalen Washing the
Feet of Christi" Raphael's michael the
Archangel;" Albert Durer's ''Dragon Of the
APOCALYPSE" Michael Angeles "Plague
of the Fiery Serpents:" Tintoret's
Flight into Egypt" Rubens' DE
scent from the Cross" Leonardo da
Vinci's LAST Supper" Claude's "Queen
of Sheba," Bellini's madonna ct Milan,"
Orcagna's "Last Judgment" and hum
dreds of miles of pictures if they were put
in line, illustrating, displaying, DRAMATIC
ing, irradiating Bible truths until the
Scriptures are not so much to-day so
much on paper as on canvas, not SO much
in ink as in all the colors of the spectrum.
In 1888 forth from Strasburg, Germany,
there came a child that was to eclipse in
speed and boldness and grandeur any
thing and every thing that the world had
seen since the first color apL cared in the
sky at the creation-Paul Gustav Dore.
At eleven years of age he published mar
velous Autographs of his own. Saying
nothing of what he did for Millions Para
disc Lost, "emblazoning it on the attention
of the world, he takes up the book of
books, the monarch of literature, the
Bible and in his pictures, ''The Creation
of Light, ""The Trial of Abraham's Faith"
"The Burial Of Sarah, Joseph Sold by
His Brethren" 'The Brazen Serpent"
"Boaz and Ruth, !" "David and Goliath"
ssThe TRANSPORTATION" 1.-THE Marriage in
Cana, Babylon tailen. ana 10 Ocrlp-
tural scenes in all, with Doldness and q
grasp and almost supernatural affiatus
that make the heart throb and the brain
reel and the tears start and the cheeks
blanch and the entire nature quake with
the tremendous things Of God and eternity
and the dead.
actually staggered down the steps Of
the London art gallery under the power
of Dore's Christ Leaving the Pratorium."
Profess you to be a Christian man or won.
an, and see no divine mission in art, and
acknowledge you no obligation either in