Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1893-06-29


many white children 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 Immediately
rushed mp, shouting Mamma"
Mamma Yes, there is an immort-
ality in a nursery song Hear it, all
You mothers, an immortality of power
to rescue and save. What an occasion
that must have been in Washington,
December nth, 1850. when Jennie
Lind sang, ''Ilome, Sweet Home" the
author of those words, John Howard
Payne, seated before her. She had
rendered her other favorite songs
"Casta Diva" and her flute song"
with fine effect, but when she struck
Home, Sweet Home, John Howard
fayne rose under the power, and Pres
ident Fillmore and Henry Clay and
Daniel Webster and the whole audi
ence rose with him. Anything con-
ne: ted with home ransacks our entire
nature with a holy power, and songs
that get well starte 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 Goas favorites, and if you
offend them, you offend him He is so
fond of their voices that there are for
e,ts where for hundred miles no
human foot has ever trod and no
human ear has ever listened Tho Sc
interminable forests are concert halls
with only one auditor-thc Lord God
Almighty. He builded those auditori
ums of leaves and sky and supports all
that infinite minstrelsy for himself
alone. BE careful how you treat his
favoritc choir. In Deuteronomy, he
warns the people: ''lf Il 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 frighten the
winged songstcrs into silence or fight
and put on your more sober attire, and
move noiselessly into the woods, fur
ther and further from the main road,
and have no conversation, for many Il
concert in and out of doors has been
ruined by persistent takers, ard then
sit down on messy bank:
Where a wild stream with headlong shock
Comes brawling down bed of rock
And after perhaps half an hour of in
tense solitude. there will be tap of a
beak on tree branch far up sounding
like the tap of musical baton, and
then first there will be Il solo, followed
by duct OF quartet and afterward by
doXologies in all the tree tops and amid
all the branches and if you have Il
Bible along with you, and you can
without rustling the leaves turn to the
lI,th Psalm of David, and read: Praise
the Lord, Eeasts, and all cattlr, creep
ing things and flying fowl" and then
turn over quietly to my text, and read,
BY them shall. the fowls of the heaven
have their habitat:on, which sing
among tie branches" or, if under the
power of the bird voices you are trans
ported as when DR.. Morgan played so
powerfully on the organ ut ST. Johns
that Richard Cecil said he was in such
blessed bewilderment, he could not
find in his Bible the first chapter of
Isaiah, though he leafcd 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
o,t of doors, let us have what my text
suggests an out-of-dOors relig on.
What business had David with all the
advantages of costly religious
service and smoking incense on
the altar, to be listening to
the chantresSes among the tree
branches? All. lie wanted 10 make
himself and all who should come aft II
him moe alert and more worshipful
amid the sweet sounds and beautiful
sights of the natural world There is
an old church that needs to be re-led
icatet. 1t is older than St, Pauls or
st. Peters. or st. Marks. or St Sophia,
or 1T. lslacs. 1t is the cathedral of
nature. That is the church in which
the services of the Millennium will be
he'd The buildings fashioned out of
stone and brick and mortar will not
hold the PEOPLE. Again the Mount of
Olives will lie the pulpit. Again the
Jordan will be the Baptistry. Again
the mountains will be the galleries
Again the skies will be the blue cell
ing. Again the sunrise viii be
the front door and the sunset
the back door of that tenn
pie. Again the clouds will be the
upholstery and the morning mist the
incense. Again the trees will be the
Organ-loft where the fowls of heaven
have their habitation which sing
among the brinchcs." Saint Francis
d Assist preached sermon 10 birds
and pronounced benediction upon
them, but all birds preach to us, and
their Eentdiction is almost supernal
While this summer, amid the works of
God, let us learn responsiveness.
Surely if we cannot sing, we can hum
a tune, and il we cannot hum a tune,
we can whistle. If we cannot he an
orioe. we can BE- quail. In some
, wav let us demonstrate our gratitude
. to God Let us + be beaten b. tho
chimney swallow and the hpmming
bird and the brown-thrcsher Let us
. try to set everything in cur life t.
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 MS and the Christ who ran
s"mcd us and the Holy Ghost who
sanctifics us. And our last song. MAJ
, 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
lowed TO own swan except he were
, Kings son, or had oonsidera bic
, estate. TIN ough one or two hundred
, years of life that bird was said never
t. utter anything like music, until its
last moments come. and, then, lifting
, its crested beauty, it would pour forth
. a song OF almost matchless thrill, re.
sounding through the groves. And
SO, although the struggles of life may
be too much fcf us. and we may find
IL hard 10 sing at all, when the last
I hour comes 10 you and M, may there
be radiance from above and a glory
gnttlipa rpt1nl that shall ana bla ~