Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-04-23
OUR LISTENING GOD.
DIR. TALMAlsE TELLS US HOW Gu
HEARS PRAYERS.


The Human Car the Sacred Vestibule OF
the Palace Of tho Soul - God III Our.
selvcs-Ec That Planted the Ear, Shall
He Not Henr3
Copyright. 1898. by American Press Asso-
ciation.]
WASHINGTON, April 17.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmago sets forth tho
goodness and wisdom of God i'll the con-
srruction of the human car and eXtols
music and encourages prayer; text,
Psalms xciv, 0. "Ho that planted the car,
shall he net hear"
Architecture is ono Of the most fascl-
mating arts, and tho study OF Egyptian,
Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, Byzantine,
Moorish, Renaissance styles of building
has been to many man Il sublime llto
work. Lincoln and York cathedrals, st.
Paul's and st. Peters and arch of Ii
tus and Theban temple and Alhambra
and Parthenon are the monuments to
tho genius of those who built them.
But moro wonderful than any arch they
ever lifted, or any transept window
they ever illumined, or any Corinthiaa
column they ever crowned, or any Goth
ic 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 tho car and the study of
its arches, its walls, its floors, its ca
nails, its aGuoducts, its galleries, It's i'll
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 overmastoring archltec-
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 APP
pian way of tho human ear, but the
mysterious pathway has new I been full
ly trodden but by two feet-the foot of
sound and the foot of God. Three ears
on each side the head-the external ear,
the middle car, tho internal ear-but all
connected by most wonderful teleS-
raphy.
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, and Homer,
in tho "Iliad, speaks of Hera, 'the
three bright drops, her glittering gems
suspended from the ear, y and many of
the adornments Of modern times were
only copies of her ear jewels found Ill
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 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 Oh 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 tho anvil,
something to be smitten; like the stirrup
of the saddle with which we mount the
steed; like the drum, beaten i'll the
march; like the harpstrings, to be swept
with music; coiled like a small shell, y
by which one of the innermost passages
of the ear is actually called; like stair
way, the sound to ascend; like bent
tube of a heating apparatus, taking that
which enters round and round; like q
labyrinth with wonderful passages, into
which the thought enters Only to be lost
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
the hardest bone of the human system,
a very rock of strength and defiance.
The ear so strange ccntrivance that
by the estimate of one scientist it can
catch the sound of 70, 700 vibrations il
a second, the outer ear taking in all
kinds of sound, whether the crash or 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 Oh 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. -
Yestibule 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
Their than the vestibule? Mysterious
homo 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
1000 feet a 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