Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-10-05
DIR. TALMAGTS SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

Subject: Music In Observation-Disclosures
Between Music As an Art and Music as
an Aid to DevotiOn-National Airs of
tho Kingdom of Heaven.
copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1897
WASHINGTON, D. CDR. Talmage, in this
sermon, discusses q most attractive depart
ment OF religious worship-the service of
song. His idea will be received with in
terest by all who love to lift their voices In
Nehemish VIII, 81. "And they had two hun
dred forty and Ave singing men and sing
Ing women
The best music has been rendered under
trouble. The first duet that I know any
thing OF was given by Paul and Silas when
they sang praises to God and the prisoners
heard them. The Scotch Covenanters,
bounded by the dogs Of persecution, sang
the De aims of David with more spirit than
they have ever since been rendered. The
captives in the text had music left In item.
and I declare that II they could find amid
FIVE singing men and singing women then
In this day OF gospel sunlight and free from
all persecution there ought to be great
multitude OF men ana women willing to
sing the praises OF God. All our churches
need arousal on this subject. Nhose who
can sing must throw their souls into the
exercise, and those who cannot sing must
learn how, and 1t shall be heart to heart,
voice to voice, hymn to hymn, anthem to
anthem, and the music shall swell jubilant
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 1t? In only an
ordinary throat and lungs there are four
teen direct muscles and thirty indirect
muscles that can produce very great
variety of sounds. What does that mean?
1t means that YOU should sing! Do you
suppose that God, who gives us such a
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 tho
organ of Lucerne, and the organ at Auar-
lem, and the organ at Frelburg, and all the
other great musical instruments of the
world. You would call such a man rs that
q monster, and yet you are more wicked If,
with the human voice, musical fnstru-
ment of more wonderful adaptation than
all the musical instruments that man ever
created, you 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 and sweetness, and YOU hear it
in the grainneld In the swoop of the wind
amid the mountain Businesses, in the
canary's warble aud the thunder shock, in
the brooks tnkle 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.
nj al on In hay hair nd
the spicula OF hay and the globue OF water
are as certainly resonant with the voice of
God as the highest heavens in which the
armies OF the redeemed celebrate their
victories. When the breath OF the flower
strikes the air and the wing OF the freely
cleaves it, there is sound and there Is mel
ody. Aud, rs to those utterances of nature
which seem harsh and overwhelming, 1t Is
as when you stand in the midst OF a 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 whirlwind to catch the blend
Ing of the music; but when that music
rises to where God is, and the Invisible
being who float above u.s. then l suppose
the harmony is as sweet as it is tremen-
dous Tn the judgment day, that day
-. ,umult and terror, there will be no
! dissonance to those who can appreciate
the music. 1t will be as wlen some
times great organist, in executing
some great piece, breaks down the in
strument upon which he is playing the
music. So whom the great march OF the
judgment day is played under the hand of
earthquake and storm aud confagration
the world itself will break down with the
music that is played on 1t. The fact is, we
are al, deaf, or we should understand that
the whole universe Is but one harmony
the stars of the night only the ivory keys
OF great instrument on which Gods fin
gers play the music of the spheres.
Music seems dependent on the law OF
acoustics and mathematics, and yet where
these laws are understood at all the art is
practiced. There are to-day 500 musical
journals in China. Two thousand years be-
fore Christ the Egyptians practiced the art.
Pythagoras learned 1t. Lnsus OF Herm oine
wrote essays on 1t. Plato and Aristotle in
troduced 1t into their schools. But have
not much interest in that. My chief inter-
est is In the music OF the Bible.
The Bible, like great harp with innu.
merable strings, swept by the fingers OF In
spiration, trembes with 1t. So far back as
the fourth chapter Of Genesis you find the
first organist and harper-Jubal. SO far
back as the thirty-frst chapter Of Genesis
you find the first choir. All up and down
the Bible You find sacred music-at we'd
dings, at inaugurations, at the treading OF
the wine press. The Hebrews understood
how to make MUSICAL signs above the mus
ical text. When the Jews came from their
distant homes to the great festivals at
Jerusalem, they brought harp and timbrel
and trumpet and poured along the great
Judaean highways river OF harmony un-
Ill In and around the temple the wealth Of
nations song and gladness had accumu-
ated. 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 1t on the piano
and another man to sing 1t. Not so in
Bible times. Miriam, the sister OF Moses,
lfter the passage OF the Red Sea, composed
ldoxology, set it to music, clapped 1t on n
.ymbal and at the same time sang 1t.
David, the psalmist was at the same time
poet, musical composer, harpist and singer,
and the majority OF his rhythm goes VI
pirating through all the ages.
There were in Bible times stringed IN
struments-a harp OF three strings played
by fret and bow; harp OF ten strings,
responding only to the fingers of the per-
former. Then there was the crooked trum-
pet, fashioned out Of the horn Of the OK or
the ram. Then there were the sistrum and
the cymbals, clapped in the dance or