The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-04-20
THE HUMAN EAR.
DR.. Talmage Says It's Construction
is Most Wonderful.
II should be Kept Away from Sinful
Sounds-GOd's Ear Always Bowed
Down to Hear the Prayers
of tho Penitent.


De Witt Talmage calls attention to the
goodness and wisdom of God in the
construction of the ear, extols music
and encourages prayer. His text is
Psalms A: o: He that planteth the ear,
shall he not hear?"
Architecture is one of the most fas-
cinating arts, and the study of Egypt
ian, Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, Byzan-
tine, Moorish, Renaissance styles of
building has been to many man
sublime life-work. Lincoln and York
cathedrals, st. Pauls and st. Peters,
and Arch of Titus, and Theban Tenn
pie, 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 Gothic cloister they
ever elaborated is the human ear.
Among the most skillful and assidu-
GUS Psychologists 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 floor, its
canals, its aqueducts, its galleries, it's
intricacies, it's convolutions, it's divine
machinery, and yet, it will take an
other thousand years before the world
comes to any adequate appreciation of
what God did when He planned and
executed the infinite and overmaSter-
ing architecture of the human ear.
The most of it is invisible and the
microscope breaks down 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 Ap-
plan Way of the human ear, but the
mysterious pathway has never been
fully trodden, but by two feet-the
foot of sound and the foot of God.
Three ears on each side of the head
the external ear, the middle ear, the
internal ear, but all connected by most
wonderful telegraphy.
The external ear in all ages adorned
by precious stones or precious metals.
The temple of Jerusalem partly built
by the contribution of earrings, and
Homer in the Iliad speaks of Hera,
"the 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 adorned by human
art, the middle and the internal ear
are adorned and garnished only by
the hand of the Lord Almighty. The
stroke of akey of yonder organ sets the
air vibrating, and the external ear
catches the undulating sound and
passes it on through the bonelets 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 Psychologists 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
harpstring, to be swept with music.
Coiled like ''snail SHE'LL" by which
one of the innermost passages of the
ear is actually called-like the stair
way, the sound to ascend-like bent
tube of heating apparatus, taking
that which enters round and round
like labyrinth with wonderful pas
sages into which the thought enters
only to be lost in bewilderment. A
muscle contracting when the noise is
too loud, just as the pupil of the eye
contracts when the light is too glar-
ing. The external ear is defended by
wax, which with its bitterness dis
courages insectile invasion. The in
+ernal ear imbedded in by what is far
the hardest bone of the human system,
very rock of strength and defiance.
The ear so strange sontrivance that
by the estimate of one scientist, it can
catch the sound of 79,7OO vibrations in
second. The other 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 mech
anism, divine mechanism, passes it on
by the bonelets of the middle ear, and
coming to the inner door of that second
ear, the sound has no power to come
further until another divine mechan-
ism passes it on through into the inner
ear, and then the sound comes to the
rail tack of the brain branchlet, and
rolls on and on until it comes to sensa-
tion, and there the curtain drops, and
hundred gates shut, and the voice of
God seems to say to all human inspec-
tion: 'yrhus far and no farther"
About Is years ago, in Venice, lay
down in death one whom may be con-
sidered the greatest musical compos er
of the century. Struggling on up from
six years of age when he was left faith
erless, Wagner rose through the oblo-
guy of the world, and ofttimes all ma
tions seemingly against him, until he
gained the favor of a king, and won
the enthusiasm of the opera houses of
Europe and America. Struggling all
the way on to 70 years of age, to con-
quer the worlds ear. In that same at
tempt to master the human ear and
gain supremacy over this gate of the
immortal soul, great battles were
fought by Mozart, Gluck, and Weber,
and by Beethoven and Meyerbeer, by
Rossini, and by all the roll of Ger
man and Italian and French
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