The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-06-30
DIR. TALMAGE ON ART.
A MIGHTY AGENCY FOR HI SAL.
WALTON OF MANK IND.
Pictures Potent for Good or Evil ar the
Subjects Are Good or ~Rad-Prafse for
American Artists-reed of Art Gal,
leries.

leries.
Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1897
DR.. Talmage shows in this discourse
how art may become of the MIGHT
lest agencies for the elevation and cal
walton Of the human race. The text is
Isaiah ii, II, 16, The day of the Lord
Of hosts shall be = = upon ALL nleas-
ant pictures"
flctures are by some relegated to
the realm Of the trivial. accidental.
lme or worldly, but my text
SHOWS mat God scrutinizes pictures,
and, whether they are good or bad,
whether used for right or wrong pur-
poses, is a matter of divine observa-
ton and arraignment. The divine mis-
sion of pictures is my subject. That
the artists pencil and the engarver's
knife have some times been made sub
serVient to the kingdom of the bad is
frankly admitted. After the ashes
and scoria were removed from Her
and Pompeii the walls of
those cities discovered to the explor-
erS a degradation in art which cannot
be exaggerated. Satan and all his
1mps have always wanted the finger
SIg of the easel; they would rather
nave possession of that than the art
OF printing, for types are not so po-
tent and quick for evil as pictures.
The powers Of darkness think they
V gained a triumph, and they have,
when in some respectable parlor or
public art gallery they can hang a. can
vas embarrassing to the good but fas-
cinating to the evil.
1t is not in a spirit of prudery, but
hnDkn6 nm nv Ctn1bc 1+1x-oI 4--LI
when | say that o have no right to
hang in your art rooms or your dwell
ing houses that which would be often
siVe to good people if the figures pic
tured were alive in your parlOr and the
guests of your household. A picture
that you have to hang in a somewhat
secluded place, or that in a public hall
you cannot with a group of friends de-
Iiberately stand before and discuss,
ought to have a knife stabbed into it
at the top and cut clear through to the
bottom, and a stout finger thrust in on
the right side, ripping clear through to
the left. Pliny the elder lost his life
by going near enough to see the inside
of VeSuViuS, and the farther you can
stand off from the burning rater of
sin the better. Never till the books of
the last day are opened shall we know
what has been the dire harvest of evil
pictOrialS n unbecOming art CALLER
les. DespOil a mans imagination and
he becomes q mere carcass. The show
windows of English and American cit
les, in which the low theatres have
sometimes hung long lines of brazen
actors and actresses in style insulting
to all propriety, have made a broad
path to death for multitudes of people.
But so ave all the other arts been at
times suborned of evil. How has mu-
sic been bedraggled? Is there any
place so low down in diSSOluteneSS that
into II hnG MT hnnn norrin6 h1ui6'C
harp, and HandePs organ, and Gott-
Schalk'S piano, and Ole Bulls violin?
and the flute, which though named af-
ter so insignificant a thing as the Sici-
liam eel, which has seven spots on the
side like flute holes, yet for thousands
of years has had an exalted mission?
Architecture, born in the heart of him
who made the worlds, under it's arches
and across it's floors, ~bacchana-
liam revelries have been enacted! 1t is
not against any Of these arts that they
have been so led into captivity!
PLEASANT PICTURES.
What a poor world this would be if
it were not for what my text calls
pleasant pictures!" 1 refer to your
memory and mine when l ask if your
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures has
not been nightly augmented by the
WOOdcutS or engraVings in the old fam
lily Bible which father and mother
read out of and laid on the table III the
old homestead when you were boys
and girls. The Bible scenes which we
all carry in our midst were not gotten
from the Bible typOlogy, but from the
Bible pictures. To prove the truth OF
it in my own case, the other day l
took up the old family Bible which l
inherited. Sure enough, what l have
carried in my mind of Jacobs ladder
was exactly the Bible engraving Of ia
cob's ladder, and so with Samson car
rying off the gates Of GAIA, Elisha re-
storing the Shunammite's son, the
massacre of the innocents. Christ bless
ing little children, the crucifiXion and
the last Judgment. My idea of all these
is that of the old Bible ~engravings
which l scanned before I could read
a word. That is true with n1ne-tenths
of you. If I could swing open the door
of your foreheads, 1 would find that
you are walking picture galleries. The
great intelligence abroad about he
Bible did not come from the general
reading of the book for the majority
of the people read it but little, II they
read it ait all; but all the sacred scenes
have been put before the great masses,
and not printers ink, but the pictorial
art must have the credit of the achieve
ment. First, painters pencil for the
favored few, and then ~engraver's plate
or woodcut for millions on millions!
What overwhelming commentary on
the Bible, what reinforcement for pa
triarchs, prophets, apostles and Christ,
what distribution Of Scriptural &nowl-
edge of all nations, in the paintings
and e~ngravings therefrom of Holman
Hunts Christ In the Temple" Pau
V~eronese's "Magdalen Washing the
Feet of Christ Raphaers Michael
the Archange," Albert Durer's Drag
on of the Apocalypse" Michael Ange-.
lo's Plague of the Fiery S~erpents,"
Tintoretto's Flight Into Egypt" Ru-
bens' Descent From the Cross"
Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper"
Claude's Queen of Sheba," Bellinis
'Madonnoa" at Milan, Orcagna's Last
Judgment and hundreds of miles or
pictures, if they were put in line, illus
drafting, displaying, dramatizing, IRA
dating Bible truths until the Scrip
lures are not today 80 much on paper
as on not so much in ink as in
all the colors of the spectrum. In 1893,
forth from Strassburg, Germany, there
came a child that was to eclipse IN
speed and boldness anything and every
thing that the world had ever seen