The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-05-26
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Harp and the Javelin, the Sym
bols Of Good and Evil
The Power of Music to Alleviate Mental
and Bodily IIls-The JaveIIn of
Envy, Hatred and Malice to
to BE Avoided.


Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for the
subject of a recent sermon in the Brook
lyn tabernacle, Harp and Javelin,"
the text being:
And David played with his hand as at other
unes. and there was a javelin in Saul's hand.
And Saul cast the javelin: for he said, viii
smite David even to the wall with IL. And Da-
vid avoided out OF his presence twice. Sam
tel xviii. i011.
What a spectacle for all ages! Saul
n 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 II one Is
disposed TO some physical ailment, and
he gets real mad. ii 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 foretelling 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. Thruml Thrum!
Thruml No use. The king will not
listen TO the exquisite cadences.
lie lets fly a javelin, expecting
TO pin the minstrel to the wall, but
David lodged the weapon and kept on,
for he was confident that he could, as
before, subdue Saul's bad spirit by mu-
sic. Again the javelin is flung and
David lodges it and departs. What a
contrast? Roseate David with harp
and enraged Saul with a 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 | can not declare. 1t
Is said that the Tyre was first suggested
by the tight drawing of the sinews of a
tortoise across its shell, and that the
flute was first suggested by the blow
ing of the wind across a bed of reeds,
and that the ratio of musical intervals
was first suggested to Pythagoras by
the different 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
harps, Scottish harps, Welsh harps,
Irish harps have been celebrated.
What an inspiring triangle! Everlast-
ing honors to Sebastian Erard, who, by
pedals invented, called the foot as well
as the hand to the harp. When the
harpsicord maker for whom he worked
discharged him for his genius, the en-
ployer, 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 during
which he flung javelin at the harpist.
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 a battle charge,
but exquisite sweetness slumbers be-
tween 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
rio hness 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.
But the javelin of my text is just as
old. 1t is about five and oDe-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,
Crusader wars, and wars of all nations
and of all ages. The structure of the
javelin 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 to cut the bread for
sustenence. But the javelin is sharp
only TO open human arteries and ex-
tinguish human eyesight and take hui
man life and fill the earth with the
cries of orphanage and widowhood and
childlessness. Oh, / am so glad that
my text brings them so close together
that we can see the contrasts be-
tween the harp and the javelin. The
one to soothe, the other to hurt; the
one to save, the other to destroy; the
one Divine, the other diabolic; the one
to play, the other to hurl; the one in
David's skillful hand, the other in
SauTs wrathful clutch. May God speed
the harp, may God grind into dizziness
the sharp edge of the javelin!
last S,,rrarner- In Russia at a vaterin o.