New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-11-07
SERMON ON PICTURES.
What the Rev. DIR. Talmage has TO Saw
About Painting and Other Works
of Art.

'Aoohtt1o3 Ocb. Io.-Ine subject OF DR.
iaimage's discourse was ssThe Divine Mis-
slon OF Pictures. His textwas Isaiah, Oh. Q,
parts OF the 18th and / 9th verses-s'The way
OF the Lord of H osts shall be upon all pleas
ant pictures" He said:
Pictures are by some relegated to the
realm of the trivial, accidental, sentimental
or worldly, but my text shows that God
scrutnizes pictures, and whether they are
good or bad, whether used for right or
wrong purposes, is q matter of divine obser-
walton and arraignment
The divine mission of pictures is my sub
ject.
That the artists pencil and the engraver's
knife have sometimes been made subservient
6o'the kingdom ofthe badis frankly admitted
after the ashes and seoria were moved from
derculaneum and Pompeii the walls of those
cities discovered to the explorers degrada-
ton 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 than
the art of printing, for types are not so po-
tent and quick for evil as pictures The
triumph, and they have, when in some re-
spectacle parlor or public gallery they can
hang q canvass embarrassing to the good,
but fascinating to the evil
1t is not in the spirit of prudery, but back
ed up by Gods eternal truth when I say
that you have no right to hang in your art
ICONS or dwelling houses that which would
Eon IL.
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 a
public hall you cannot with a group OF
friends deliberately stand before and
discuss, ought to have q knife
stabbed into it at the top and cut
through to the bottom, and a stout finger
thrust in on the right side ripping clear
through to the left. Pliny, the elder, lost his
life by going near en- ough to see the inside
of Nesuvius, 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 the dire
harvest of evil pictorials and unbecoming art
galleries Despoll a mans imagination and
he becomes d 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
styles insulting to all propriety 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 dessOluteness that
into it has not been carried Davids
harp, Handel's organ, and Gottschallls
piano and Ole Bulls violin; and
IL Q,,+o IL
so insignificant a thing as the Siciian eel,
which has seven spots on the side like flute
holes, yet for thousands of years has had an
exalted mission Architecture, born in the
heart OF Him who made the worlds, under
its arches and across it's floors what bac-
chanalian revelries have been enacted! 1t is
not against any of these arts that they have
been so led into captivity. What a poor
world this would be if were not for what my
text calls pheasant pictures!' [ refer to
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 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 oft in my own case the other day
I took UP the old family Bible which in
herited. Sure enough, what l have carried
IN my mind ofJacob's 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 crucifixion and the last Judgment. Ny
idea of all these is that of the old Bible en-
cravings which scanned before I could read
g word. That is true with nine-tenths
you. 1t lscOuld swing open the door of your
foreheads [ would find that you are walking
picture galleries.
The great intelligence abroad about the
Bible did not come from the general reading
ofthe book, for the majority of the people
read it but Titles they read it at all; but all
the sacred scenes have been put before the
great masses, andnot printers ink, but the
pictorial art must have the credit of the
achievement. First, pain ters pencil for the
favored few, and then engraver's plate or
woodcut for millions! What overwhelming
commentary on the Bible, what reinforce
ment for ,patriarchs, prophets, apostles and
Christ, what distribution Of Scri pture kno WI,
edge of all nations in the paintings and en-
cravings tnerefrom OTTOMAN Hunts Christ
in the Temple" Paul Veroneses "Magdalen
Washing the Feet of Christi" Raphael's
Michael, the Archangel;' Albert Durer's
dragon ofthe Apocalypse" Michael Angeles
"Plague of the Fiery Serpents;" Tntoret's
"Flightiinto Egypt" Rubens' descent from
the Cross;'' Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Sup
per- Claude's Queen ofSheba" Belini's MA
GONNA foI MllaH, OfcaSnaS ''LaSGa JudG-
ment, and hundreds of miles of pictures if
they were put in line, illustrating, displaying,
dramatizing, irradiating Bible truths until
the Scriptures are to-day so much on paper
as on canvass not SO much on ink as in all
the colors of the spectrum. In 1888 forth
from Strasburg, Germany, there came child
that to eclipse in speed and boldness
and grandeur anything and verything that
the world had seen since the first color
appeared on thesky at the creation, Paul
Gustav Dore. At eleven years Of age
he published marvellous lithogra phs of
himself. Saying nothing of what he
did for Millions Paradise Lost"
.emblazoning it on the attention of the
world, he takesup the Book of Books, the
monarch of literature, the Bible, and in his
pictures "The Creation of Light" '"The
Trial of Abraham's Faith" sSThe Burial
of Sarah, Joseph Sold by His Brethren
"The Brazen Serpent" "Boaz and Ruth
"David and Goliath" 'sThe Transfgura-
&ion," ''The Marriage in Cana" Baby
aon Fallen" and $50 Scliptural scenes in all,
with boldness and grasp and almost su-
pernatural aff1atus that make the heart
throb, and the brain reel, and the tears
lLI- 1. II