The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-07-20
THE SONG OF BIRDS.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage Talks on a
Soasonable Topic.
The Lessons Taught by the Birds in Their
sOngs-The Melodies are Divinely
Taught and are Spontaneous
Psalms of Praise.

delivered by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage
in the brooklyn tabernacle from the
text:
BY them shall the fowls of the air have their
habitation, which sing among the branches
Psalms CIV, L.,
There is an important and improving
subject to which most people have
given no thought, and concerning
which this is the first pulpit discussion,
namely the song of birds. If all that
has been written concerning music by
human voice or about music sounded
on instrument by finger or breath were
put together, volume by the side of vol
ume, it wauld fill hundred alcoyes of
the national libraries. But about the
song of birds there is as much silence
as though, n thousand years ago, the
last lark had, with his wing, swept the
door-latch of Heaven, and rs though
never u whip-poor-will had sung its
lullaby to a slumbering forest at night
fall. We give passing smile to the
call of n bobOlinl1 or the chirp of n
canary, but about the origin, about the
fiber, about the meaning, about the
mirth, about the pathos, about the in
spiration, about the religion in the
song of birds, the most of us are either
ignorant or Indifferent. A caveat
this morning file in the high court of
Heaven against that almost universal
irreligion.
First, | remark that which will sur
prise many, that the song of birds is
regulated and systematic song, capa
BILE of being written out in note and
staff and bar and clef, as much as any
thing that Wagner or Schuman or
Handel ever put on paper. AS we
pass the groves where the flocks are
holding matin or vesper service, we
are apt to think that the sounds are
extemporized the rising or falling tone
Is mere accident, it is flung up and
down by haphazard, the bird did not
know what it was doing, it did not
care whether it was a long-meter
psalm or a madrigal. What a
mistake! The musician never put
on the music rack before him Mendels-
sohn's elijah" or Bethoven's Con
certo' in G, or Spohr's B fat Symphony
with more definite idea as to what he
was doing than every bird that can
sing at all confines himself to accurate
and predetermined rendering. The ora
torioS, the chants, the carols, the over
lures, the interludes, the ballads, the
canticlcs, that this morning were heard
or will this evening be heard in the for
est have rolled down through the ages
without variation. Even the chip
monks song was ordained clear back in
the eternities. At the gates of Para
disc, it sang in sounds like the sylla-
bles ''Kul!" "Kuk!" "Kukr Just as
this morning in Long Island or
chard it sang "Kuk" "Kuk''
The thrush at the creation ut
tered sounds like the word
Teacher" "Teacherr Teacher"
rs now it utters sounds like '"Teacherw
"Teacher!' ''Teacher!' In the sum-
mer of the year the yellow-hammer
trilled that which sounded like the
word "Ifr' "Ifl" 'If!" as in this sum-
mer it trills eff" "If!" eff" The
Maryland yellow-throat inherits and
bequeaths the tune sounding like the
words PITY me, pity me, pity me"
The white sparrow's "Tseep, tseep,"
woke our great-grandfather as it will
awaken our great-grandchildren The
"Tee-ka-tee-ka-teeka'' of the birds In
the first century is the same as the
Observation-Disclosures" of the nine
teenth century.
The goldtinch has for six thousand
years been singing Decree dee-ee-
reee." But these sounds, which we
put In harsh words, they put in ca
dences, rhythmic, soulful and enrap-
turing. Now, if there is this order and
decentralization and rhythm nil
through Gods creation, does it not i'm
ply that we should have the same char
acteristics in the music we make or try
to make? Is it not wicledness that
so many parents give no opportunity
for the culture of their children in the
art OF sweet sound? If God stoops to
educate every blubird, oriole and gros-
beak in song, how can parents be so
indifferent about the musical develop-
ment of the immortals in their house
hold? While God will accept our at
tempts to sing, though II be only hum
or drone, if we can do no better, what
shame that, in this last decade of the
nineteenth century, when so MANY Or
chestral batons are waving and so
many academies of music are in FIJI II
concert and so many skilled men
and women are waiting to offer
instruction, there are SO many
people who can not sing with
any confidence In the house of God.
because they have had no culture in
this sacred art or, while they are able
to sing fantasia at piano amid the
futtering fans of social admirers.
nevertheless feel utterly helpless when,
in church, the surges of an Ariel or an
Antioch roll over them. The old-fash-
Toned country singing school, now
much derided and caricatured land in
deed sometimes it was diverted from
the real design into the culture of the
softer emotions rather than the voicel,
nevertheless did admirable work. and
In our churches we need singing schools
to prepare our Sabbath audiences for
prompt and spontaneous and multipo-
tent psalmody. This world needs 70 he
Stormed with halleluiahs Wa ,,,o,.