The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-04-29

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immortal soul, great battles were
fought by Mozart, Gluck and Weber,
and by Beethoven and Meyerbeer, by
Rossini and by all the roll Of German
and Italian and French composers,
some of them in the battle leaving
their blood on the keynotes and the
musical scores. Great battle fought
for the ear-fought with baton, with
organ-pipe, with trumpet, with cor
net-a-piston, with all ivory and brazen
and silver and golden weapons of the
orchestra; royal theater and cathedral
and academy of music the fortreSses
for the contest for the ear. England
and Egypt fought for the supremacy of
the SueZ canal, and the Spartans and
the Persians fought for the defile of
ThermOpylae; but the musicians of all
ages have fought for the mastery of the
auditory canal and the defle of the i'm
mortal soul and the Thermopylae of
struggling cadences.
For the conquest of the ear Haydn
struggled on up from the garnet where
he had neither fire nor food, on and on
until under the too great nervous strain
of hearing his own grafton of the
Creation" performed, he was carried
out to die, but leaving as his legacy to
the world lis symphonies, 1913 pieces
for the baritone, 3 masses, Orato~
rios, ~ German and Italian songs, 80
canons, 365 English and Scotch songs
with accompaniment, and 1886 pages
of libretti. All that to capture the
gate of the body that swings in from
the tympanum to the snail SHELF ly-
ing on the beach of the ocean of the
immortal soul.
To conquer the ear, Handel strug-
gled on from the time when his father
would not let him go to school lest he
learn the gamut and become a musician,
and from the time when he was allowed
in the organ loft just to play after the
audience had left, to the time when he
left to all nations his unparalleled ora
tOrios of Esther" Deborah" ''Samp-
son, "Jephthah, Judas Maccabeus,
Israel in Egypt" and the Messiah, :"
the soul of the great German composer
still weeping in the Dead March of our
great obsequies and triumphing in the
raptures of every Easter morn.
To conquerer the ear and take this
gate of the immortal soul, Schubert
composed his great ''Serenade," writ
ing the slaves of the music on the bill
of fare in u restaurant, and went on
until he could leave as a legacy to the
world over loo magnificent compost
tions in music. To conquer the ear
and take this gate of the souls castle
Mozart struggled on through poverty
until he came to pauper's grave and
one chilly, wet afternoon the body of
him who gave to the world the Re
quiem" and the ''G-minor Symphony"
was crunched in on top of two other
paupers into a grave which to this day
is epitaphless.
For the ear everything mellifiuous,
from the birth hour when our earth
was wrapped in swaddling clothes of
light and serenaded by other worlds,
from the time when Jubal thrummed
the first harp and pressed a key of the
first organ, down to the music of this
Sabbath day. Yea, for the ear the
coming overtures of Heaven. for what
ever other part of the body may be left
in the dust, the ear, we know, is to
come to celestial life; otherwise, why
the ''harpers harping with their harps?"
For the ear, carol of lark, and whistle
of quail, the chirp of cricket, AID dash
of cascade, and roar of tides oceanic,
and dOxology of worshipful assem-
bly, and minstrelsy, cherubic, seraphic
and archangeiic. For the ear all Pan
dean pipes, all flutes, all clarinets, all
hautboys, all bassOons, all bells, and
all organs and Westminster
abbey, and Freyburg, and Berlin, and
all the organ pipes set across Christen-
dom, the great Giants Causeway for
the monarchs of music to pass over
For the ear, all chimes, all ticllings of
all anthems, all dirges,
all glees, all choruses, all lullabies, all
On, the ear, God hon
ored the ear, groOved with Divine
sculpture and poised with Divine
gracefulness and upholstered with
curtains of Divine embroidery,
and corridored by Divine car
pentry, and pillared with Divine archi-
lecture, and chiselled in bone of Divine
and conquered by professions
of Divine marshalling. The ear! A
perpetual point of Interrogation, ask
ing how? perpetual point of apos-
trophe appealing to God. None but
God could plan it. None but God could
build it. None but God could work It,
None but God could keep it. None brit
God could understand it. None but
God could explain It. Oh, the wonders
of the human ear.
How surprisingly sacred the human
ear. You had better be careful how
you let the sound of blasphemy or I'M
cleanness step into that holy of holes.
The Bible says that in the ancient tenn
pie the priest was set apart by the put
ting of the blood of a ram on the tip of
the ear, the right ear of the priest.
But, my friends, we need all of US 20
have the sacred touch of ordination
on the hanging lobe of both
ears, and on the arches of
the ears, on the Eustachian tube
of the ear, on the mastoid cells
of the ear, on the tympanic cavity of
the ear, and on everything from the
outside rim of the outside ear clear in
to the point where sound steps off the
nerve and rolls on down into
the unfathomable depth of the immor-
tai soul The Bible speaks of dull
ears. and of 'uncircumcised ears" and
of Itching ears" and of ''rebellious
ears, and of open ears, and of those
who have all the organs of hearing and
yet who seem to be deaf, for it cries to
them: He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear"
To show how much Christ thought Of
the human ear, He one day met man
who was deaf came uD to him and nut
a finger of the right hand into the
Orifice of the left ear of the patient,
and put finger of the left hand into