The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-11-09
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Pointed Discourse on the Divine
Mission of Art.
Good Pictures Sermons in ThsmseIves-
Those Pandering to Depraved Tastes
Had Better Never Have
Seen Light.

4nOso RanCerlng TO DepEaVed TASTES
Had Better Never Have
Seen Light.
Rev. T. Dewitt TaImage took for the
subject of a re cent sermon in the Brook
/ lyn Tabernacle ''The Divine Mission of
Pictures" His text was:
The way of the Lord of hosts shall be upon
all pleasure pictures.-Isaiah, H., 1915.
Pictures are by some relegated to the
realm OF the trivial, accidental, senti-
mental 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 and ar
raignment.
The Divine mission of pictures is my
subject.
That the artists pencil and the en-
graver's knife have sometimes been made
/ subservient to the kingdom of the bad is
frankly admitted. After the ashes and
scoFia 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 gathered 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.
| Tt is not in a 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
| hous ehold. A picture that you have to
hang in q somewhat secluded place, or
that in a public hall you can not with
| group of friends deliberately stand be-
fore and discuss ought to have a knife
stabbed into it at the top and cut clear
through to the bottom, and a stout finger
thrust in the right side, ripping
clear through to the left. PIiny, the
elder lost his life by going near enough
to see the inside of Vesuvius, and the
further you can stand off from the bun n
ing crater of sin the better. Never till
the books of the last day are opened shall
we know what has been the dire harvest
Of evil pictorials and unbecoming art
galleries. DespO1 a mans imagination
and he becomes a moral carcass. The
show window OF English and American
cities in which the low theaters have some
times hung long lines of brazen actors and
actresses in 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 bedraggledl Is
there any place so low down in dissOlute-
ness that into it has not been carried
David's harp, aud HandePs organ, and
Gottschalk's piano and Ole BULBS violin !;
and the flute, which though named after
so insignificant a thing as the SiclIian
,vb hoS he Cf1 Ia
like flute holes, yet for thousands Of years
has had an exalted mission. Architect
ure, born in the heart of Him who made
the worlds, under it's arches and across
its floors what bacchanalian revelries
have been enacted? 1t is not against any
Of these arts th6o thoy have Deen 80 "a
into captivity. What poor world this
would be if it were not for what my text
calls pleasant pictures ~ I refer to your
memory and mine when I ask if your
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures has not
been nightly augmented by the wood
cuts or engraving in the old family Bi bic,
which father and mother read out of and
laid on the table in the old homestead
when you were 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 1 took up the old family Bible
which 1 inherited. Sure enough, what
have carried in my mind of Jacobs lad
der was exactly the Bible engraving of
| Jacobs ladder; and so with Samson car
rying off the gates of GAIA; Iisha re-
storing the Summarizes son; the mas
sacre of the innOcents; Christ blessing
little children; the Cruciixion and the
last Judgment. My idea of all these is
that of the old Bible engravings which 1
scanned before l could read word. That
is true with nine-tenths of you. If l could
swing open the door of your foreheads I
would find that you are walking picture
galleries. The great intellige ence abroad
about the Bible did not come from the
general reading of the book, for the m a.
iority of the people read it but little, if
| they read it at all; bat all the sacred scenes
have been put before the great masses,
and not printers ink, but the 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 cOmmen tary on the Bible;
what re -enforcement for patriarchs,
prophets, apostles and Christi; what dis :
tribution Of Scriptural knowledge OF all
nations, in the paintings and engravings
therefrom of Holman Hunts ''Christ in
the Temples" Paul Veronesefs "Mag
daIen Washing the Feet of Christi"
Raphael's michael the Archange -
Albert Durer's Dragon Of the Apoca-
Upset" Michael Angeles plague Of the
Fiery Serpents;'' Tintoret's "Flight into
| Egypt;" Rubens' Descent from the
Cross;" Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Sup
per;" Claude's Queen of Sheba;"
Bellini's madonna at Milan;" Orcagna's
Last Judgment" and hundreds Of miles
Of pictures if they were put in line, illus .
trating, displaying, dramatizing, ir-
radiating Bible truths until the Scriptures
are not to-day SO much on paper as on
canvas, not 50 much in ink as in all the
colOrs of the spectrum. In 1893, 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 ap-
peared on the sky at the creation,
Paul Gustav Dore. At eleven years Of
age he published marvellous Autographs
Of his own. Saying nothing of what be
did for MiltOn's paradise Lostn en-
blazoning it on the attention Of the
world, he takes up the Book OF books. the
monarch Of literature, the Bible, and ia
his pictuI es, ''The Creation Of Light "
"The Trial of Abraham's Faith" s'The
Burial Of Sarah" Joseph Sold By His
Brethren" ," "The Brazen Serpent" "Boaz
and Ruth" David and Goliath, sFThe
TRANSPORTATION" "The Marriage in
Cana" Babylon Fallen" and two hun
dred and five Scriptural scenes in all,
with boldness and a grasp almost su-
pernatural afiatus that make the heart
throb and the brain reel and the tears
start, and the cheeks blanch, and the en-
tire nature quake with the tremendous
things OF God and eternity and the de ad
I actually staggered down the steps of
the London art Gallery under the power
Of Dore's Christ Leaving the Praetori-
um."
Profess you 20 be q Chris tiaa Inaa or
woman and see no Divine mission ia art