The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-05-26
HARP AND JAVELIN.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Power Of Music.
Its Power to Cure Diseased Bodies and
Minds-It Is Sometimes the Best Policy
to Dodge-UnreasonabIe Attitude of
Evil Toward Goodness.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. I.
Dewitt Talmage took for his subject,
Harp and javelin," the text being
/ Samuel xviii 10-11: ''And David
played with his hand as at other tunes,
and there was a javelin in Saurs hand.
And Saul cast the javelin; for he said,
l will smite David even to the wall
with it. And David avoided out of his
presence twice" DIR. Talmage said:
What spectacle for all ages! Saul
giant, and David a dwarf. An un-
fortunate war ballad had been COM
posed and sung eulogizing David above
Saul. That song threw Saul into a
paroxysm of rage, which brought on
one of his old spells of insanity, to
which he had been subject. If one is
disposed to some physical ailment, and
he get real mad, it is very apt to bring on
one of his old attacks. Saul is a raving
maniac and he goes to initiating the
false prophets or sibyls, who kicked
and gesticulated wildly when they pre-
tended to be fortellinG events. What
ever the physicians of the royal staff
may have prescribed for the disordered
king, know not, but David prescribed
music. Having keyed up the harp his
fingers began to pull the rhythm from
the vibrated strings. Thrum! Thruml
Thrum! No. use. The king will not
listen to the exquisite cadences. He
lets fly n javelin, expecting to pin the
minstrel to the wall, but David lodged
the weapon and kept on, for he was
hot he haf h
due Saul's bad spirit by music. Again
the javelin was flung and David lodges
it and departs. What contrast!
Roseate David with harp and en-
ragged Saul with javelin. Who would
not rather play the one than fling the
other? But that was not the only time
in the worlds history that harp and
javelin met. Where their birthplace
was, cannot declare. 1t is said that
the Tyre was first suggested by the
tight drawing of the sinews of tor
toise across its shell, and that the flute
was first suggested by the blowing of
the wind across bed of reeds, and that
the ratio of musical intervals was first
suggested to Pythagoras by the differ
ent hammers on the anvil of the smithy,
but the harp seems to me to have
dropped out of the sky and the javelin
to have been thrown up from the pit.
The oldest stringed instrument of the
world is the harp. Jubal sounded his
harp in the Book of Genesis. David
played many of his psalms on the harp
while he sang them. The captives in
Babylon hung their harps on the will
lows. Josephus celebrated the inven
ton of the ten-stringed harp. limo
theus, the Milesian, was imprisoned for
adding the twelfth string to the harp.
because too much luxury of sound
might enervate the people. Egyptian
harps, Scottish harps, Welsh harps,
Irish harps have been celebrated.
What an inspiring triangle! Everlast-
ing honors to Sebastian Erard, who,
by pedals invented, allied the foot as
well as the hand to the harp. When
the harpsichord maker for whom he
worked discharged him for his genius
the employer, not wanting to be eclipSed
by his subordinate, Erard suffered
from the same passion of jealousy that
threw Saul of my text into the fit dur
ing which he flung javelin at the harp
ist. The harp is almost human, as you
find when you put your finger on its
pulse. Other instruments have louder
voice, and may be better for battle
charge, but what exquisite sweetness
slumbers between the harp strings,
waking at the first touch of the tips of
the fingers. 1t can weep. 1t can plead.
1t can soothe. 1t can pray. The flute
is more mellow, the trumpet is more
startling, the organ is more majestic,
the cymbals are more festive, the drum
is more resounding, but the harp has
a richness of its own, and will continue
its mission through all time and then
take part in celestial symphonies, for st.
John says he heard in Heaven the harps
of God.
Rut the javelin of my text is just as
old. 1t is about five and one-half feet
long, with wooden handle and steel
point, keen and sharp. But it belongs
to the great family of death-dealers,
and is brother to sword and spear and
bayonet. and first cousin to all the i'm
Elements that wound and slay. 1t has
cut its way through the ages. 1t was
old when Saul, in the scene of my text,
tried to harpoon David. 1t has gashed
the earth with grave trenches Its
keen tip is Redeemed with the blood of
American wars, English wars, German
wars, Russian wars, French wars, Cru
sader wars, and wars of all nations and
of all ages. The structure of
thejavelin shows what it was made for.
The plowshare is sharp, but aimed
to cut the earth in preparation for har
vests. The lightning rod is sharp, but
aimed to disarm the lightnings and
secure safety. The AK is sharp, but
aimed to fell forests and clear the way
for human habitation. The knife is
sharp, but aimed toscut the bread for
sustenance. But the javelin is sharp
only to open human arteries and ex-
human life and fill the earth with the
cries of orphanage and widowhood and
childlessness.
Now what does this make you think
of? 1t suggests to me music as a medi-
cine for physical and mental disorders
David took hold of the musical instru-
ment which he best knew how to play
and evoked from it sounds which were
for King Saul's diversion and medica-
ment. But, you say, the treatment in
this case was failure. Why was it a
failure? Saul refused to take the medi-
cine. A whole apothecary shop of cura-
tive drugs will do nothing toward heal
ing your illness if you refuse to take
the medicine. 1t was not the fault of
David's prescription. but the fault of
Saul's obstinacy. David, one of the
wisest and best of all ages, stands be-
fore us in the text administering music