The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-05-26
THE WISDOM OF GOD.
Discourse by Rev. DR.. Talmage on
the Human Ear.
The Architec and Architecture of One of
Mans Most Important Faculties
Man Does Not Hear Alone,
God Hears Also.

SSOtt Hears AlSOs
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, in the fol-
lowing sermon, discourses Instructive
ly on mans organ of hearing. 1t is
based on the text:
He that planted the ear shall he not hear?-
Psalms KEW. g.
Architecture is one of the most fas-
cinating arts, and the study of Egyp-
tian, Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, By
zantine, 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 Titus, and Theban temple
Alhambra and Parthenon are the mon
uments to the genius of those who
built them. But more wonderful than
any arch they ever lifted, or any tran
sept 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 given their time to an ex-
animation of the ear and the study of
its arches, it's walls, its floor, its canals,
its aqueducts, it's galleries, its intrica-
cies, it's convolutions, its Divine ma
chinery, 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 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 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 the head-the ex-
ternal ear, the middle ear, the internal
ear, but all connected by most wonder
full 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 jew
els found in Pompeiian museum and
Etruscan vase But while the outer
ear may be adorned by human art, the
middle and internal 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 undu-
lating sound and passes it on through
the bonelets Of the middle ear to
the internal ear, and the 3,0O
| fbers of the human brain take
up the vibration and roll the sound
on into the soul The hidden ma
| chinery 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 harp strings, to be swept with
music. Coiled like ''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 heating apparatus, TAX
ing that which enters round and round
like labyrinth with wonderful
passages 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 it's bitterness discour
ages insectile invasion. The interna
ear embedded in by what is far thu
hardest bone of the human system, ;
very rock of strength and defiance.
The ear is so strange contrivance
that by the estimate of one scientist i
can catch the sound of 73, 700 vibration
in second. The outer ear taking il
all kinds of sound, whether the crasl
of an avalanche or the hum of bee
The sound passing to the inner door o
the outside ear halts until another mech
anisn, Divine mechanism, pas ses i
on by the bonelets of the middle ear
and coming to the inner door of tina
second ear the sound has no power t
come.further until another Divine mech
anism passes it on through into tn
inner ear, and then the sound comes t
the rail track of the brain branchle1
and rolls on and on until it comes t
sensation, and there the curtain drops
and hundred gates shut, and the voic
of God seems TO say to all human in
spection: Thus far and no farther
In this vestibule of the palace of tn
soul, how many kings of thought, {
medicine, of physiology, have don
penance of lifelong study and got n
further than the vestibule. Mysteriou
home of reverberation and echo. Gran
central depot of sound. Headquarter
to which there come quick dispatche
part the way by cartillages, part til
way by air, part the way BY bone, pa'
the way by nerve-the slowest dispatc
plunging into the ear At the speed