The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-04-29
THE WISDOM OF GOD.
Discourse by Rev. DR.. Talmage on
the Human Ear.
The Architect and Architecture OF One of
Mans Most Important Faculties
Man Does Not Hear Alone,
God Hears Also.

I
ly on mans organ of hearing. 1t is
based on the text:
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear'-
/ Psalms xc!y., 9.
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 a man a
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, its walls, its floor, its canals,
its aqueducts, its galleries, its intrica-
| cies, its 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 APP
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 tributiOn of earrings, and
Homer in the Ilia1 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 a key
of yOnder organ sets the air vibrating,
md tho aUtarpal on. catches tho 11nHu-
lating sound and passes it on through
the boncletS of the middle ear to
the internal ear, and the 1900
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-lil1e 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 a small shell" by
which one OF the innermost passages
Of the ear is actually called-like
stairway, the sound to ascend-like a
bent tube of a heating apparatus, talk
ing that which enters round and round
like labyrinth with wonderful
passages into which the thought enters
only to De 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. Inc external ear is defended by
wax which with its bitterness diScOur-
ages insectile invasion. The internal
ear embedded in by what is far the
hardest bone OF the human system, a
very rock of strength and defiance
The ear is 50 strange a contrivance
that by the estimate of one scientist it
can catch the sound of %, 700 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 mech
anism, Divine mechanism, pas ses 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 mech
anism 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 a hundred gates shut, and the voice
of God seems to say to all human in
spection: Thus far and no farther
In this vestibulc of the palace of the
soul, how many kings of thought, of
medicine, of physiology, have done
penance of lifelong study and got no
further than the vestibule. Mysterious
home of reverberatioD and echo. Grand
central depot of sound. Headquarters
to which there come quick dispatches,
part the way by cartillages, 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
l .O90 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 flute. Small in
strument of music, only a quarter OF an
inch of surface and the thinneSs of one
two hundred and fiftieth part of an
inch and that thinness divided into
three layers. In that ear musical staff,
lines, spaces, bar and rest. y bridge
leading from the outside natural world
to the inside spiritual world; we see
ing the abutment at this end of the
bridge, but the fog of an untitled mys-
terry hiding the abdtment on the other
end of the bridge. Whispering gallery
of the soul. The human voice is Gods
eulogy the ear. That voice capable of
producing l. SO, ls6, GA, AS sounds, and
all that variety made, not for the re-
galement of beast or bird. bat for the