Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1893-06-26

song, and let your glohminS song 70 your
children, whether loud or long or short, be
u Christian song.
These family songs are about all we Keep
Of the old homestead. fhe house where
you were born Will so into the hands OF
strangers. Tie garments that were care
fully kept as relics will become moth eaten.
The family Bible can so into the possession
OF only one OF the family The lock Of gray
hair may be lost from the locket and in
fow years all signs and mcmentos Of the
old homestead will be gone forever. But
the family songs, those that we heard at
years OF age, at years of age, at 10 years Of
nVe. will be indestructible, and Mt 40 or 80
or 90 or 20 years OF age will give us mighty
boost over some rough place in the path of
our pilgrimage.
TIE cAPTIyEs' SONG.
Many years ago group of white children
were captured and carried of by the In
dians Years after mother who had lost
two children In that capture went among
the Indians, and there were many white
children in line but 30 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 imme-
diatcly rushed up shouting, Mammal
Mammal Yes, there Is an Immortality in
nursery song. Hear it, all the mothers
an Immortality Of powcrto rescue aud save.
What an occasion that must have been
in Washington Dec. II, 1850, when Jenny
Lind sang Home, Sweet Home the au-
thor Of those words, John Howard Payne,
seated before herl She had rendered her
other fayorite songs, "Casta Diva" and her
Flute Song with fine effect but when
she struck Home, Sweet Home 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 tile family hearth roll
on ufter the lips that sung them are forever
silent and the cars 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 II you offend them you offend him.
He Is so fond OF their voices that there are
forests where for hundred miles no hui
man foot has ever trod and no human ear
has ever listened. Those intermnable for
ests are concert halls with only one audi
tor-the Lord God Almighty. He builded
those auditorums of leaves and sky and
supports all that infinite minstrelsy for
himself alone. BE careful how you treat
his fayorite choir
In Deuteronomy he warns the people,
"lf 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,
lao KKyall tpttl tbaa nj al
! thou mayest prolong thy days So you see
your own longevity is related to your treat
/ mcnt of birds. Then 20 forth and attend
the minstrelsy. Put OIL startling colors,
which Brighten the winged songsters into
silence or flight, and put on your more SO,
| Der attire and move noiselessly into the
woods, farther and farther from the main
| road, and have no conversation, for many a
| concert in and out Of doors hns been ruined
| by persistent takers and then sit down ON
NOISY bank
Where wild stream with headlong shock
Comes lrawling down II bed Of rock.
| And after perhaps u half an hour OF intense
solitude there will be tap of beak on a
tree branch far up sounding like the tap OF
I a musical baton aud then first there will
be Il solo, followed by duet or quartet
and afterwald by doxologies In all the tree
tops and amid all the branches, and II you
have Bible along with you, and you can
without rustlng the leaves turn 10 the one
hundred and forty-eighth Psalm of David
and read, Praise the Lord, beasts and all
cHttle creeping things and flying fowl, II
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
power OF the bird voices you arc trans
ported, as when DR. Morgan played 81
powerfully on the organ at St Johns that
Richard Cecil said he was In such blessed
bcwilderment he could not find In his Bib,
the first chapter OF Isaiah though he leafet
the book over and over, and you shall be &c
overcome with forest harmony that you
cannot find the Psalms Of David. Nevei
mind, for God will speak to you so might
lily It will make no difference whether YOU
hear his voice from the printed page or tn,
vibrating throat of one OF his plumed crea
lures
cons FIRST TEMPLES.
While this summer more than usual out
Of doors let us have what my text suggests
AN out of doors religion. What bushes,
had David, with all the advantages OF
costly religious service and smoking in
cense on tine altar, to be listening to thu
chantresses among the tree branchesg All
he wanted to make himself aud all VIII,
should come after him more alert and NOR
worshipful amid the sweet sounds ant
beautiful sights Of the natural world
There is an old church that needs to be re
dedicated. 1t Is older than ST. Pnulis o.
st. Peters or st. Marks or ST. Sophia's Of
ST. lsaao's, 1t is the cathedral Of nature
That is the church in which the services o
the millennium will be held The build
ings fashioned out OF stone and brick lnt
mortar will not hold the people
Again the Mount Of Olives will be tn,
pulpit. Again the Jordan will be the hap
tistry. Again the mountains will be ID,
galleries. Again the skies will he the blu,
ceiling, Again the sunrise will be tn
front door and the sunset the back door o
that temple. Again the clouds will be tn
upholstery and the morning mist the In
cense Again the trees will be the orgal
loft where the fowls OF heaven have thei
habitatlon which sing among the branch
es.n Saint Francis d'Assisi preached
sermon TO birds and pronounced benedic
ton upon them, but all birds preach to us
and their benediction is almost supernal.
While this summer amid the works o
God let us learn responsiveness. Surely /
we cannot sing we can hum tune, and i
we cannot hum tune we can whistle. |
We cannot be nm oriole, we can be n qusil
In some way let us dcmonstr rate our graft