Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-05-19

S .ul's obstinacy. David. one of the
wisest and best of all ages, stands be-
fore us in the text administering
music for n arvous disorder and cere-
bral disturbance. And David was
right. Music is the mightiest force in
all therapeutics. It's results may not
be seen as suddenly as other forms OF
cure, but it is just as wonderful. You
will never know how much suffering
and sorrow music has assuaged and
healed. A soldier in the United
States army said that on the days the
regim ntal band played near the
hospital all the sick and wounded re-
vlved 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
expected to get home began to pack
their baggage and ask about time
! tables 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 statue of Emperor and
Empire S, resolved severely to punish
them. but the Bishop, knowing that
the Emperor had group of boys sing
to him while eating at the table,
taught the boys n plaintive song in
which the people lamented their bad
behavior, and the King, under the
! pathoS of the music, cried out: ~ he
city of Antioch is forgiven" The rage
of Achilles was assuaged by harp
Asclepiades swayed rebellious multi
tudes by a harp. After the battle of
Yorktown, when musician was to
suffer amputation, and before the days
| of anesthetics, the wounded artist
called for a musical instrument and
lost not IA note during the forty min
utes of amputation. Filippo Palma,
! the great musician, confronted by
an angry creditor, played so enchant-
ingly before him that the creditor for
gave the debt and gave the debtor ten
guineas more to appease other credit
OBS. An eminent physician of olden
time commended (of course, carrying
our theory too far that all ailments
of the world could be cured by music.
! i he medical journals never report
their recoveries by this mode. But in
/ what twilight hour has many saint
of God solaced heartache with a
hymn hummed or sung or played!
Jerome of Prague sang W lille burning
at the stake. Over what KEYS of piano
or organ consolation has wal led. Yea,
over a thousand of the worried, per-
picked and a onizcd. While there are
hymns ami tunes ready for the jubi-
liant, there is a rich hymnology for the
Naomi ami "rventide'
and Autumn Leaves and "Come, we
Disconso ate" and whole portfolios
and librettos of tears set to music. All
the wonderful triumphs of surgery and
all the new modes of successful treat
ment of physical and mental disorders
are discussed IN medical convent ons
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
| instrumental, let the world know what
power there is in sweet sound, whether
rolling from lip or leaping from tight
ened chord or ascending from ivory
hey. Music is a universal language.
At the foot of the tower of Babel lam
guage was split into fragments never
to be again put together, but one thing
was not hurt, and that is music, and it
is the same the world over Last sum
mer in Russia at watering place we
were greeted as we entered great
auditorium, which was filed with
thousands of Russians, whose Ian
guage | could not understand any
more than they could understand
mine. But after the grand band had,
out of compliment to us, played our
tHo great American airs, | stepped on
I tie platform and said to the
bandmast Russian air! Russian
airl' and then he tapped with his baton
on tn. music rack, and with splendor
and ma jesty OF power that almost
made us quail, the full band poured
forth their National Anthem.
They understood our American
music, and we understood their
| Russian music. 1t is universal
language and SO good for uni
versal cure. ! should not wonder if in
the dav of judgment it should be found
out that more souls have been saved
by music than by preaching. l should
not wonder if, out of the one hundred
and forty and four thousand ransomed
souls that John foresaw before the
throne of God, at least one hundred and
thirty thousand had been saved by
sweet song. Why does not the church
on earth take the hint? Heaven is the
great musical center of the universe,
the place of doXologies and trumpets
and harps, and in preparation for that
place, we ought to make more of music
on earth. The band of music at
Waterloo played the retreat of the
Forty-Second Highlanders back to
their places, and sacred music has re-
turned many faltering host of God
into the Christian conflict with as
much determination and dash as Ten
nyson' six Hundred" Who can tell
what has been accomplished by
Charles Wesleys seven thousand
hymns, or by the congregational sing
ing of his time, which could be heard
two miles off? When my dear friend,
bio Lewis gone to rest all too soon),
conducted a campaign against drunk
enness at the West, and marshalled
thousands of the noblest women of the
land in that magnificent campaign,
and whole neighborhoods and vi lagos
and cities shut up their grog-shops, do
you know the chief weapon used? 1t
was the song:
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee.
They sang 1T at the door of hundreds
of liquor saloons which had been open
for years, and either at the first charge
of the campaign or the second the sa-
loon shut up. At the first verse OF
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