The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1893-05-24


King Saul's diversion and rnedicament.
But, you say, the treatment in this case
was a failure. Why was it failure?
Saul refused to take the medicine. A
whole apothecary shop of curative drugs
will do nothing toward healing your
illness if you refuse to take the medi-
cine.
1t was not the fault of David's pre-
scription, but the fault of Saul's obsti-
macy. David, one of the wisest and
best of all ages, stands before us in the
text administering music for nervous
disorder and cerebral disturbance. And
David was right. Music is the might
est force in all therapeutics. Its results
may not be seen as suddenly as other
forms of cure, but it is just as wonder
full You will never know how much
suffering and sorrow music has as
suaged and healed. A soldier in the
United States army said that on the
days the regimental band played near
the hospitals all the sick and wounded
revived, and men who were so lame
they could not walk before, got up and
went out and sat in the sunshine, and
those so dispirited that they never ex-
pected to get home began to pack their
baggage and ask about timetables on
steamboat and rail train.
Theodosius, the emperor, wrathful at
the behavior of the people of Antioch,
who, on some sudden provocation, tore
down the statues of emperor and EN-
press, resolved severely to punish them,
but the bishop, knowing that the en-
peror had group of boys to sing to
him while eating at the table, taught
the boys plaintive song in which the
people lamented their bad behavior, and
the king, under the pathos of the mu-
sic, cried out: THE city of Antioch is
forgiven" The rage of Achilles was
assuaged by harp. Asclepiades
swayed rebellious multitudes by harp.
After the battle of Yorktown, when a
musician was to suffer amputation,
and before the days of anesthetics, the
wounded artist called for a musical in
strument and lost not note during the
forty minutes of amputation.
Filippo Palma, the great musician,
confronted by an angry creditor, played
so enchantingly before him that the
creditor forgave the debt and gave the
debtor ten guineas more to appease
other creditors. An eminent physician
of olden time contended (of course, car
rying our theory too far that all all
ments of the world could be cured by
music. The medical journals never re-
port their recoveries by this mode. But
in what twilight has many saint of
God solaced heartache with a hymn
hummed or sung or played! Jerome,
OF Prague, sang while burning at the
stake. Over what keys of piano or or
gan consolation has walked! Yea, in
church one hymn has rolled peace over
thousand of the worried, perplexed
and agonized.
While there are hymns and tunes
ready for the jubilant, there is rich
hymnology for the suffering-"Naomi
and "Eventide" and Autumn Leaves
and Come, We disconsolate," and whole
portfolios and ibrettos of tears set to
music. All the wonderful triumphs OF
surgery and all the modes of successful
treatment of physical and mental dis.
orders are discussed in medical conven-
tions and spread abroad in medical
books, and it is high time that some OF
the millions of souls that have been
medicated by music, vocal and instru,
mental, let the world know what power
there is in sweet sound, whether roll.
ing from lip or leaping from frightened
chord or ascending from ivory key.
Music is universal language. At the
foot of the tower of Babel language was
split into fragments, never to be again
hurt, and that is music, and it is the
same all the world over.
Last summer in Russia at a watering
place we were greeted as we entered q
great auditorium, which was filled with
thousands of Russians, whose language
| could not understand any more thar
they could understand mine. But after
the grand band had, out of compliment
to us, played our two great American
airs, l stepped on the platform and sale
to the bandmaster, Russian air, Rus
sian air" and then he tapped with his
baton on the music rack, and with 6
splendor and majesty of power that al
most made us quail, the full banc
poured forth their national anthem
They understood our American music
and we understand their Russian music
1t is universal language, and so good
for universal cure. should not won
der if in the day of Judgment 1t should
be found out that more souls have beer
saved by music than by preaching.
l should not wonder if, out of the
144, 900 ransomed souls that John fore
saw before the throne of God, at leas
100000 had been saved by sweet song
Why does not the church on earth TAX,
the hint? Heaven is the great musica
center of the universe, the place for dox
ologies and trumpets and harps, and il
preparati on for that place we ought t,
make more of music on earth. TIL
band of music at Waterloo played tn
retreat of the Forty-second Highland
ers back to their places, and SACRED
music has returned many a falterin.
host of God into the Christian sonflic
with as much determination and dasl
as Tennyson's "Six Hundred" VIII
can tell what has been accomplished
by Charles Wesleys 1000 hymns, or by
the congregational singing of his time
which could be heard two miles off?
When my dear friend Dio Levi
(gone to rest all too soon}, conducted
| cannpoirp onainct 6,,,,, 1.oo,oee 90 81,