The Yale expositor., 1898-04-22

ages nave fought Tor the mastery OF the
auditory canal and the defile of the
immortal 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 oratorio 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, fifteen masses, five
oratorios, forty-two German and 1tal-
ian songs, thirty-nine canons, 365 Eng
lish and Scotch songs with accompani-
ment, and 1886 pages of libretti. All
that to capture the gate of the body
that swings in from the tympanum to
the snail SHELF lying 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 gamuI and become a must
clan, 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 unpar-
alleled oratorios of Esther" "Debo-
rah," Sampson" "Jephthah," Judas
Maccabeus," Israel in Egypt" and the
Messiah" the soul of the great Ger
man composer still weeping in the
Dead March of our great obsequies and
triumphing in the raptures Of every
Easter morn.
To conquer 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 a restaurant, and went on
until he could leave as a legacy to
the world over q thousand magnificent
compositions in music. To conquer
the ear and take this gate of the souls
castle Mozart struggled on through
poverty until he came to a pauper's
grave, and one chilly wet afternoon
the body of him who gave to the world
the Requiem" and the "G-minor Sym
phony" was crunched in on the top of
two other paupers into q grave which
to this day Is epitaphless.
Are you ready now for the question
of my text? Have you the endurance
to bear its overwhelming suggestive
ness? Will you take hold of some pill
lar and balance yourself under the
semi-omnipotent stroke? He that
planted the ear, shall he not hear?"
Shall the God who gives us the appar-
atus with which we hear the sounds Of
the world. himself not be able to catch
up song and groan and blasphemy and
worship? Does he give us a faculty
which he has not himself? Drs. Wild
and Gruber and Toynbee invented the
acoumeter and other instruments by
which to measure and examine the ear,
and do these instruments know more
than the doctors who made them? He
that planted the ear, shall he not
hear?" Jupiter of Crede was always
represented in statuary and painting
as without ears, suggesting the idea
that he did not want to be bothered
with the affairs of the world. But our
God has ears. His ears are open to
their cry" The Bible intimates that
two workmen on Saturday night do not
get their wages. Their complaint in
stantly strikes the ear of God. The
cry OF those that reaped hath entered
the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth." Did
Cod hear that poor girl last night as
she threw herself on the prison bunk
in the city dungeon and cried in the
midnight: God have mercy?" DO you
really think God could hear her? Yes,
just as easily as when fifteen years ago
she was sick with scarlet fever, and
her mother heard her when at mid
night she asked for a drink of water.
He that planteth the ear, shall he not
hear?"
When a soul prays, God does not sit
bolt upright until the prayer travels
immensely and climbs to his ear. The
Bible says he bends clear over. In
more than one place Isaiah said he
bowed down his ear. In more than
one place the Psalmist said he inclined
his ear, by which | come to believe that
God puts his ear so closely down to
your lips that he cen hear your faintest
whisper. 1t is not God away off I'D
yonder; it is God away down here.
close up, so close up that when you
pray to him, it is not more whisper
than a kiss. All! yes, he hears the
captive's sigh and the plash of the
orphans tear, and the dying syllables
of the shipwrecked sailor driven on the
Skerries. and the infants, Now l lay
me down to sleep" as distinctly as he
hears the fortissimo of brazen bands
in the Dusseldorf festival, as easily as
he hears the salvo of artillery when
the thirteen squares of English troops
open all their batteries at once at Wat
erloo. He that planted the ear can
hear.
Just as sometimes an enhancing
strain OF music will linger in your ears
Tor days after you have heard |
it, and just as sharp cry
of pain once heard while |
passing through Bellevue hospital |
chung to my ear for weeks, and Just as |
a horrid blasphemy in the street some
times haunts ones ears for days. SO |
God not only hears, but holds the