The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-04-26
OUR LISTENING GOD
Human Ear the sacred vestibuie
Of Palace OF the SOul-6od In Our.
seiye>-He That Planted the Ear,
Shall He Not Hear

Shall He Not Heart
! In this discourse Dr.. Talmage sets
forth the goodness and wisdom OF sod
in the construction OF the human ear
and extols music and pray
er; text Psalms KEW, 9, He that plant
ed the ear. shall he not hear?"
Architecture IS one Of the most fasci-
Grecian, Etruscan, Roman. Byzantine.
Moorish, Renaissance styles Of building
has been 10 many a man a sublime life
work. Lincoln and York cathedrals. St.
Paul's and st. Peters and arch of tt
tus and Theban temple and Alhambra
n Parthenon are the monuments to
the genius Of those who built them.
But more wonderful than any arch
they ever lifted, or any transept win
dow they ever Illuminated, or n Cor
inthian column they ever crowned, or
any Gothic c~loister they ever elaborat-
ed, 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 a n the study
of its arches, its walls, its floors, its ca
nails, it's aQueducts, its galleries, its in
tricacieS, it's convolutions, its divine
| machinery, and yet it will take another
thousand years before the world comes
to any adequate appreciation of hat
God did when be planned and executed
the infinite and Overmastering archi-
lecture of the human ear. The most OF
it is invisible, and the microscope
breaks down in the attempt at explora-
ton. 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 n
Conte and DeBlainville and Rank n
Buck have attempted to walk the APP
plan way of the human ear, bu 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 the head-the eXter-
nal ear, the middle ear, the internal
ear-bu all connected by most wonder
full telegraphy.
WONDERS OF THE EAR.
The external ear, in all ages adorned
by precious stones or precious metals.
The temple of Jerusalem partly built
by the contribution of earrings, n
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 jew
els found in POmpeiian museum and
Etruscan vase. But, while the outer
ear may be adoned by human art, the
| middle and the internal ear are adorn-
ed and garnished only by the hand of
the Lord Almighty. The stroks of a
key of yonder organ sets the air vib-
| rating, and the external ear catches
<Io ,7n1,1lofinC CnI1n6 and masses IT IN
| through the bonelets of the middle 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 name of things familiar
to us, like the hammer. something to
striks; like the anvil. something to be
smitten; like the stirrup of the saddle
with which we mount the steed; like
! me ~ drum. beaten in the march; like the
| harpstrings, to be swept witt. music;
! coiled like a snail she'll" by which
one of the innermost passages of the
| ear is actually called; like a stairway,
the sound to ascend, like a bent tube
of a heating apparatus, taking that
! which enters ROUND anu rvunS ike a
| labyrinth with wonderful passages, in
| to which the thought enters only to be
| lost in bewilderment: a muscle cor
tracing when the noise is too loud,
| Just as the pupil of the y contracts
when the light is too glazing. The ex-
ternal ear is defended by wax which
! with it's bitterness discourages insec-
tile invasion. The internal ear imbed-
, ded in by what is far the hardest bone
of the human system, a 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, 700 vibrations
in a second, the outer ear taking in all
| kinds of sound, whether the crash of
an avalanche or the hum of a bee.
| The sound passing to the inner door
of the outside ear halts until another
mechanism, divine mechanism, passes
| it on by the bonelets of the middle ear,
| and. cOmming to the inner loo of that
| second ar, the sound has no power to
come farther until another divine me-
chanism 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 m to
| sensation, and there the curtain drops,
and a hundred gates shut, and the
! voice Of God seems to say to all human
inspection, Thus far and no farther
VESTIBULE OF THE SOUL.
In the 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
Their than the vestibule? Mysterious
home of reverberation n echo. Grand
Central depot Of sound. Headquarters
to which there come quick dispatches,
part the way by c~artilages, 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
1000 feet a second. Small instrument
of music on which is played all the
music you ever heard, from the gran
deurs of an August thunderstorm to
the softest breathings of a flute. Small
instrument Of music. only a quarter OF
an inch of surface n the thinness OF
one ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS part OF
an inch, and that thinness divided into
three LAYERS. In tina ear musical stan,
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 h other end
the bridge. Whispering gallery of the