Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-05-20


began to pack their baggage and ask
about timetables on steamboats, and
rail train. The rage of Achilles was
assuaged by harp. Asclepiades
swayed rebellious multitudes 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 musical in
strument, and lost not note during
the forty minutes of amputation. Fill
ippo Palma, the great musician, con-
fronted by an angry creditor, played so
enchantingly before him that the cred
itor forgave the debt and gave the
debtor ten guineas more to appease
other creditors. An eminent physician
of olden time commended (of course car
rying out theory too far that all all
mcnts of the world could be cured by
music. The medical journals never re-
port their rccovcries by this mode. But
in what twilight hour has many saint
of God solaced heartache with u
hymn hummed or sung or played.
| should not wonder If in the day OF
Judgment it should be found out that
more souls have been saved by music
than by preaching. Why does not the
church on earth take the hint? Heaven
is the great musical center of the uni
verse, the place of doXologies and trum-
pets and harps, and in preparation for
that place, we ought to make more OF
music on earth. When my dear friend,
bio Lewis (gone to rest all too SOON.
conducted campaign against drunk
enness at the west. and marshaled
thousands of the nobest women of the
land in that magnificent campaign. and
whole neighborhoods and villages and
cities shut up their grog-shops, do you
know the chief weapon used? 1t was
the song:
Nearer, nv God, to thee,
Nearer 10 thee.
They sang it mt the door of hundreds
of LIQUOR saloons which had been open
for years, and either ut the first charge
of the campaign or the second the sa-
loon shut up. You say they opened
their saloons again. Yes. some of them
did. But it is great thing to have
hell shut up if only for week. Give
full swing to Il good gospel hymn and
it would take the whole world for God.
But when in my text | see Saul de-
clining this medicine of rhythm and
cadence and actually hurting javelin
at the heart of David, the harpist, be-
think myself of the fact that sin would
like To kill sacred music. We are not
told what tune David was playing on
the harp that day. but from the charac-
ter of the man we know it was no crazy
madrigal. or scnseless ditty. or Il
sweep of strings suggestive of the mel
odrama, but elevated music. God-given
music, inspired music, religious music.
whole heaven of it encampcd in Il
harp string. In many church the
iavelin of criticism has crippled the
harp of worship. If Satan could silence
all the Sunday school songs and the
hymns of Christian worship he would
gain the greatest achievement.
See also in my subject rejected OPP
portunity of revenge. Why did not
David pick up Saul's javelin and hurl
it back again? David had a skillful arm.
He demonstrated on another occasion
he could wielda sling, and he could have
easily picked up that javelin, aimed it
at Saul, the would-be assassin, and left
the foaming and demented monster as
lifeless under the javelin as he left
Goliath. No, no, men and women with
power of tongue or pen or hand to reply
to an embittered antagonist, better i'm
itate David and let the javelin lie at
your feet and keep the harp in hand.
See also in my subject that the fact
that q man sometimes lodges is not
against his courage. My text says that
when Saul assailed him David avoided
out of his presence twice, that is, when
the javelin was flung he stepped out of
its direction, or bent this way or that;
in other words, he lodged. But all
those who have read the life of David
know that he was not lacking in PROV
ess. David had faults, but cowardice
was not one of them. When David,
who was, guess, about AZ feet high,
went out to meet the giant, who was,
/ guess, about ten feet high, it was
big undertaking, and the Unequal
tiles of the struggle were so great
that it struck the giants idea of
the ludicrous, and he suggested to the
little fellow that he would make
fine dinner for buzzard or a jackal.
4 .rl
unto the fowls of the air and to the
beasts of the field" When David went
out to meet that giant and conquered,
he demonstrated, as he did on other
occasions, his courage. But / am glad
that when Saul flung that javelin David
lodged it, or the chief work of his life
would never have been done. What a
lesson this is to those who go into use
less danger, and expose their lives or