The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-05-26

"ONANCo dIIiSI CdIlcu IOT u muS1cdl III
strument, and lost not note during
the forty minutes of anputation. 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 contended (of course car
rying out theory too far that all all
ments of the world could be cured by
music. The medical journals never re-
port 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. Je-
rome of Prague sang while burning at
the stake. All the wonderful triumphs
of surgery and all the new modes of
successful treatment of physical and
mental disorders are discussed in med
zeal conventions 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 in
strumental, 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
key.
Last summer in Russia at watering
place we were greeted as we entered a
great auditorium, which was filed with
thousands of Russians, whose language
l could not understand any more than
they could understand mine. But
after the grand band had, out of COM
pliment to us, played our two great
American airs, stepped on the plat
form and said to the bandmaster:
Russian air! Russian air. and then
he tapped with his baton on the music
rack, and with a splendor and majesty
of power that almost made us quail,
the full band poured forth its national
anthem. They understood our Ameri-
can music, and we understood their
Russian music. 1t is universal Ian
guage and so good for universal cure.
/ 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,
Dio Lewis (gone to rest all too soon),
conducted campaign against drunk
enness at the west, and marshaled
thousands of the nOblest 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? Itwas
the song:
Nearer nv God, TO thee,
Nearer to thee.
They sang it 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. 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 a good gospel hymn and
it would take the whole world for God.
But when in my text 1 see Saul de-
Ginning 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 a senseless ditty, or a
sweep of strings suggestive of the mel
odrama, but elevated music, God-given
music, inspired music, religious music,
a whole heaven of it encamped in a
harp string. In many Il church the
javelin 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 skillful arm.
He demonstrated on another occasion
he could WELD 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.
Do not strike back. Do not play the
game of tit-for-tat. What! A javelin
hurled at you and fallen at your feet,
and you not hurl it back again? Yes.
1 have tried the plan. l learned it from
my father and have practiced it all my
life, and it works well. The best thing
you can do with javelin hurled at you
it to let it lie where it dropped, or hang
it up in your museum as a curiosity.
See also in my subject that the fact
that a man sometimes lodges is not
against his courage. My text says that
when Saul assaulted 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,
1 guess, about ten feet high, it was
a 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
a fine dinner for buzzard or jackal.
"Come to me and will give thy flesh
unto the fowls of the air and to the
beasts of the field" When David went
cut to meet that giant and conquered,
he demonstrated, as he did on other