Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-09-07
A SERVICE OF SONG.
REV. OR. TALMAoE'S SERMON ON
MUSIC IN RELIGION.
The Best Music Rendered Under
Trouble - God Meant All to Sing.
The Proper Music For n Church.
copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1899. !

copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1891
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3.-Dr. Talmage
today discussed most attractive depart
ment Of religious worship-the service of
song. His ideas will be received with in
terest by all who love to lift their voices
IN praise in the Lords house The text
Is Nehemiah vii, CT. "And they had two
hundred forty and five singing men and
singing women"
The best music has been rendered I'M
der trouble. The first duet that know
anything Of was given by Paul and Silas
when they sang praises to God and the
prisoners heard them. The Scotch Cow
enanters, bounded by the dogs of perse-
cution, sang the psalms of David with
more spirit than they have ever since
been rendered. The captives in the text
had music left in them, and declare that
il they could find. amid all their trials,
two hundred and forty and five singing
men and singing women then in this day
of gospel sunlight and free from all per-
secution there ought to be great multi
tudc Of men and women willing to sing
the praises of God. All our churches
need arousal on this subject Those who
can sing must throw their souls into the
exercise. and those who cannot sing must
learn how, and it shall be heart to heart,
voice to voice, hymn to hymn, anthem to
anthem, and the music shall swell jubi-
liant with thanksgiving and tremulous
with pardon.
Have you ever noticed the construction
Of the human throat as indicative Of
what God means us to do with it? In
only an ordinary throat and lungs there
are II direct muscles and 80 indirect
oil LuN
variety OF sounds. What does that mean?
1t means that you should sing! Do you
suppose that God, who gives lis such
musical instrument as that. intends us to
keep it shut? Suppose some great tyrant
should get possession of the musical in
struments of the world and should lock
up the organ of Westminster abbey, and
the organ of Lucerne, and the organ at
HARLEM, and the organ at Freihurg
and all the other great musical instr,i-
mcnts of the world You would call such
n man as that monster, and yet you
are more wicked it, with the human
voice, musical instrument OF more won
derful adaptation than all the musical
instruments that man ever created, ron
shut it against the praise of God.
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God,
But children OF the heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad.
Music seems to have been born in the
soul of the natural world. The omnipo-
tent voice with which God commanded
the world into being seems to linger yet
with its majesty ana sweetness, and you
hear it in the grainfeld in the swoop OF
the wind amid the mountain businesses,
in the canary's MARBLE and the thunder
shock, in the brooks tinkle and the
oceans paean. There are soft cadences
in nature and loud notes, some OF which
we cannot hear at all and others that
are so terrific that we cannot appreciate
them.
The Judgment Days Great March.
The animnlculae have their music, and
the spicula Of hay and the globule OF
water are as certainly resonant with the
voice of God as the highest heavens in
which the armies Of the redeemed cele
brate their victories. When the breath Of
the flower strikes the air, and the wing Of
the FREELY cleaves 1t, there is sound and
there is melody: and as to those utter
anccs Of nature which seem harsh and
overwhelming, it is as when you stand in
the midst Of great orchestra, and the
sound almost rends your ear because you
are too near to catch the blending Of the
music. So, my friends we stand too near
the desolating storm and the frightful
whirlwnd to catch the blending of the
music. but when that music rises to
where God is, and the invisible beings
who float above us, then ! suppose the
harmony is as sweet as it is tremendous
In the Judgment day, that day Of tumult
and terror, there will be no dissonance to
those who can appreciate the music. 1t
will be as when sometimes great organ
LIST, in executing some great piece, breaks
down the instrument upon which he Is
playing the music. So, when the great
march Of the judgment day is played
under the hand of earthquake, and storm
and conf1agration, the world itself will
break down with the music that Is played
on it. The fact is, we are all deaf, or we
should understand that the whole uni
verse is but one harmony-the stars Of
the night only the ivory keys of great
instrument on which Gods fingers play
the music OF the spheres.
Music seems dependent on the law of
acoustics and mathematics, and yet
where these laws are not understood at
all the art Is practiced. There are today
800 musical journals in China. Two
scuTS SHTlst inc EsByp-
tians practiced this art. Pythagoras
learned it. Lasus of Hermione wrote
essays on it. Plato and Aristotle intro
duced it into their schools. but have not
much interest in that. My chief interest
is in the music OF the Bible.
The Bible, like great harp with in
Vulnerable strings, swept by the fingers
of inspiration, trembles with it, So far
back as the fourth chapter of Genesis
you find the first organist and harper
Jubai So far back as the thirty-frst
chapter of Genesis you find the first
choir. All up and down the Bible you
find sacred nusic--at weddings, at inau-
gurations, at the treading of the wine
press. The Hebrews understood how to
make musical signs above the musical
text When the Jews came from their
distant homes to the great festivals at
Jerusalem. they brought harp and tim
'brel and trumpet and poured along the
great Judaean highways river of har-
mony until In and around the temple the
wealth Of nations song and gladness
had accumulated. In our day we have
division Of labor in music, and we have
one man to make the hymn, another man
to make the tune, another man to play it
on the piano and another man to sing it,.
Not so in Bible times. Miriam. the sis
ter OF Moses. after the passage of the
Red sea, composed doxology, set 1t to
music. clapped it on cymbai and at the
same time sang It. David. the psalmst,
| was at tho anne time Doct musical COM