Connecticut western news., 1898-04-21
OUR LISTENING GOD.
DR. TALMAGE TELLS US HOW GOD
 HEARS PRAYERS.

the Palace of the Soul God In Our
 selves-He That Planted the Ear, Shall
 He Not Hear?
 Copyright. 1898. by American Press Asso-
 ciation.l
 WASHINGTON, April 17.-In this dis course Dr. Talmage sets forth the goodness and wisdom of God in the con- struction of the human ear and extols music and encourages prayer; text, Psalms xciv, 9, "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?"
 Architecture is one of the most fasci- hating arts, and the study of Egyptian, Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, Byzantine, Moorish, Renaissance styles of building has been to many man sublime life work. Lincoln and York cathedrals, St. Paul's and St., Peters and arch of Ti- tus and Theban temple and Alhambra and Parthenon are the monuments to the genius of those who built them. But more wonderful than any arch they ever lifted, or any transept window they ever illumined, or any Corinthian column they ever crowned, or any Goth ic cloister they ever elaborated, is the human ear.
 Among the most skillful and assidu- ous physiologists of our time have been those who have given their time to the examination of the ear and the study of its arches, its walls its floors, it's ca nals, it's aqueducts, its galleries, its in tricacies, its convolutions, its divine machinery, and yet it will take another thousand years before the world comes to any adequate appreciation of what God did when he planned and executed the infinite and oyermastering arohitec ture of the human ear. The most of it is invisible, and the microscope breaks down in the attempt at exploration. | The cartilage which we call the ear is only the storm door of the great temple | clear down out of sight, next door to the immortal soul.
 Such scientists as Helmholtz and | Conte and De Blainville and Rank and | Buck have attempted to walk the Alp | plan way of the human ear, but the | mysterious pathway has never been full | ly trodden but by two feet-the foot of | sound and the foot of God. Three ears | or each side the head-the external ear, | the middle ear, the internal ear-but all | connected by most wonderful teleg- | raphy.
 Wonders of the Ear.
 The external ear, in all ages adorned | by precious stones or precious metals. l The temple of Jerusalem partly built by | the contribution of earrings, and Homer, in the "Iliad," speaks of Hera, "the l three bright drops, her glittering gems | suspended from the ear, and many of | the adornments of modern times were | only copies of her ear jewels found in | Pompeiian museum and Etruscan vase. But, while the outer ear may be adorn- | ed by human art, the middle and the in- | ternal ear are adorned and garnished | only by the hand of the Lord Almighty. | The stroke of key of yonder organ sets | the air vibrating, and the external ear | catches the undulating sound and passes | it on through the boAelets of the middle | ear to the internal ear, and the 5000 | fibers of the human brain take up the | vibration and roll the sound on into the | soul. The hidden machinery of the ear, by physiologists called by the names of | things familiar to us, like the hammer, | something to strike; like the anvil, | something to be smitten; like the stirrup | of the saddle with which we mount the | steed; like the drum, beaten in the | march; like the harpstrings, to be swept | with music; coiled like a "snail shell,"
 by which one of the innermost passages | of the ear is actually called; like stair
 way, tho sound to ascend like bent | tube of a heating apparatus, taking that | which enters round and round; like
 labyrinth with wonderful passages, into | which the thought enters only to be lost 1 in bewilderment; muscle contracting | when the noise is too loud, just as the | pupil of the eye contracts when the light | is too glaring. The external ear is de- | tended by wax which with its bitter
 ness discourages insectile invasion. The | internal ear imbedded in by what is far | tho hardest bone of the human system, | very rock of strength and defiance.
 The ear so strange a contrivance that | by the estimate of one scientist it can | catch the sound of 73, TOO vibrations in | a second, the outer ear taking in all | kinds of sound, whether the crash of an | avalanche or the hum of bee. The | sound passing to the inner door of the | outside ear halts until another mechan- ism, divine mechanism, passes it on by | the bonelets of the middle ear, and, com- ing to the inner door of that second ear, the sound has no power to come farther until another divine mechanism passes it on through into the inner ear, and then the sound comes to the rail track ! of the brain branchlet and rolls on and | on until it comes to sensation, and there the curtain drops, and hundred gates shut, and the voice of God seems to say to all human inspection, "Thus far and no farther. "
 vestibx3e of the Soul.
 In this vestibule of the palace of the soul how many kings of thought, of medicine, of physiology, have done pen ance of lifelong study and got no far ther than the vestibule? Mysterious home of reverberation and echo Grand Central depot of sound. Headquarters to which there come quick dispatches, part the way by cartridges, part the way by air, part the way by bone, part the way by nerve, the slowest dispatch plunging into the ear at the speed of 1,090 feet second. Small instrument of music on which is played all the music you ever heard, from the gran deurs of all August thunderstorm to the softest breathings of flute. Small in- strument of music, only quarter of an inch of surface and the thinness of one o-hundred and -fiftieth part of an inch, and that thinness divided into three layers. In that ear musical staff, lines, spaces, bar and rest. A bridge leading from the outside natural world to the inside spiritual world, we seeing the abutment at this end the bridge, but the fog of an uplifted mystery hid ing the abutment on the other end the bridge. Whispering gallery of the soul. The human voice is God S eulogy the ear. That voice capable of produc- ing 17,592, 186, 044, 4l5 sounds, and all that variety made not for the regale-