The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-26

fully Kept as relics win become moth
eaten. The family Bible can 20 into the
possession of only one of the family. The
lock of gray hair may be lost from the
locl5ct and in a few years all signs and
memcntoes Of the old homestead will be
gone forever. But the family songs,
those that we heard at two years Of age.
at five years of age. at ten years Of age
viii be indestructible, and at fortyO fifty
or sixty or seventy years Of age will give
us a mighty boost over some rough place
in the path of our pilgrimage. Many
years ago a group of white children were
captured and carried of by the Indians.
Years after, mother who had lost two
! children in that capture, went among the
Indians, and there were many white chill
dren in line, but so long time had passed,
the mother could not tell which were
hers, until she began to sing the old
nursery song, and her two children immc-
diately rushed up shouting, Mamma
Mammal" Yes, there is an immortality
! in nursery song. Hear it, all you mothers,
an immortality power to rescue and save
| What an occasion that must have been IN
| Washington, December 18th, 1850 when
Jenny Lind sang "HOme, Sweet Home, "
the author of those words, John Howard
! Payne, seated before her. She had rem
| dered her other favOrite songs, Costa
Diva, a." and her "F'lute Song with fine
effect but when she struck Home, Sweet
| Horne, " John Howard Payne rose under
the power, and President Fillmore and
! Henry Clay and Daniel Webster and the
whole audience rose with him. Anything
connected with home ransacks our entire
nature with a holy power, and songs that
get well started in the nursery or by the
| family hearth roll on after the lips that
sung them are forever silent and the ears
that first heard them forever cease to
hear
preach this sermon Just before many
of you will go out to pass days or weeks
in the country. Be careful how you
treat the birds. Remember they are
Gods favorites, and if you offend them,
you offend him. He is so fond of their
voices that there are forests where for
hundred miles no human foot has ever
trOd and no human ear has ever listened
Those interminable forests are con-
cert halls with only one auditor - the
Lord God Almighty. He builded those
auiditoriums of leaves and sky and sup
ports all that infinite minstrelsy for him
self alone. Be careful how you treat his
faVOrite choir In Deuteronomy, he
warns the people: eff a birds nest
chance to be before thee in the way in any
tree, or on the ground, whether they be
young ones or eggs, thou shalt not take
the dam with the young, that it may be
well with thee, and that thou mayest |
prolong thy days" So you see your own
longevity is related to your treatment of |
birds. Then go forth and attend the |
minstrelsy. Put off startling colors, |
which brighten the winged sOngsters into |
silence or flight, and put on your more |
sober attire, and move noiselessly into |
the woods, further and further from the |
main road, and have no conversation, for |
many a concert in and out of doors lbs |
been ruined by persistent takers, and |
then sit down on a messy bank,
Where a wild stream with headlong shock
Comes brawlfng down bed of rock.
And after perhaps a half an hour of in |
tense solitude, there will be tap of |
beak on a tree branch far up sounding |
like the tap of musical baton, and then |
first there will be solo, followed by a |
duet or quartet, and afterward by dOXolo- |
gies in all the tree tops and amid all the |
branches, and if you have a Bible along |
with you, and you can without rustling |
the leaves, turn to the l4Sth Psalm of |
David, and read: "Praise the Lord, |
beasts, and all cattle, creeping things and |
flying fowl" and then turn over |
quietly to my text, and read, "By |
them shall the fowls of the heaven |
have their habitation, which sing |
among the branches" or, if under the |
ported, as when DR. Morgan played so |
powerfully on the organ at st. Johns that |
Richard Cecil said he was in such blessed |
bewilderment, could not find in his |
Bible the first chapter of Isaiah, though |
he leated the book over and over, and you |
shall be so overcome with forest harmony |
that you cannot find the Psalms of David, |
never mind, for God will speak to you so |
nightly, it will make no difference |
whether you hear his voice from the |
printed page or the vibrating throat of |
one of his plumed creatures.
While this summer more than usual out |
of doors, let us have what my text sug
gests, an out-of-doors religion. What !
business had David with all the advan-
tages of costly religious service, and
smoking incense on the altar, to be listen
ing to the chantresses among the tree
branchesa All! He wanted to make
himself and all who should come after
him more alert and more worshipful amid
the sweet sounds and beautiful sights of
the natural world. There is an old
church that needs to be rededicated. 1t
is older than St. PauIs or ST. Peters, or
ST. Marks, or st. Sophia or St. Isaac's
1t is the cathedral of Nature That is the
church in which the services of the Mil
lennium will be held. The buildings fash
toned out of stone and brick and mortar
will not hold the people. Again the Mount
of Olives will be the pulpit Again the
Jordan will be the Baptistry Again the
nbdluS Will NC bllS galleries. again
the skies will be the blue ceiling. Again
the sunrise will be the front door and the
sunset the back door Of that temple
Again the clouds will be the upholstery
and the morning mist the incense. Again
the trees will be the organ-loft where
1.-The fowls of heaven have their habita-
ton which sing among the branches"
Saint Francisd' Assist preached a ser
mon to birds and pronounced benedic-
ton upon them, but all birds preach to
us, and their benediction is almost super
nal While, this summer, amid the
works of Cod let US learn responsiveness. |
Surely if we cannot sing, we can hum
tune, and if we cannot hum a tune, we
can whistle. If we cannot be an
oriOle, we can be a quail. In
some way let us demonstrate our graft
tude to God. Let US not be beaten by
the chimney swallow and the humming
bird and the brown thresher. Let US try
to set everything in our life to music, and
if we cannot give the carol of the song
sparrow, take the plant Of the hermit
thrush. Let our life be an anthem of
worship to the God who created US AMI
the Christ who ransomed US and the
Holy Ghost who sanctities US. And our
last song May it be our best song!
The swan was thought by the ancients
never TO sing except when dying In
the time of Edward " no one was al