The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-10-12
A SERVICE OF SONG.
Rev. DR.. Talmage's Sermon on
Music in Religion.
The Best Music Rendered Under
TrOuble-Gsd Meant All to
Sing-The Proper Music
for q Church.
copyright, Louis KIopsch, 1891
WASHINGTON,

copyright. Louis Klopsch, 1891
Washington,
DR.. Talmage to-day discussed a
most attractive department OF re-
ligious worship-the service of song.
His ideas will be received with interest
by all who love to lift their voices in
praise in the Lords house. The text
| is Nehemiah 1867: "And they had
two hundred forty and five singing men
and singing women"
The best music has been rendered un-
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 Covenanters, bounded by the
dogs of persecution, 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 l declare that if 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
multitude 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 jubilant with
thanksgiving and tremulous with par
don.
Have you ever noticed the construc-
of what God means us to do with it ?
In only an ordinary throat and lungs
there are IA direct muscles and 30 in
direct muscles that can produce very
great variety of sounds. What does
that mean? It means that you should
sing! Do you suppose that God, who
gives us such musical instrument as
that, intends us to keep it shut? Sup.
pose some great tyrant should get pos.
session of the musical instruments OF
the world and should lock up the or
gan of Westminster abbey, and the
organ of Lucerne, and the organ at
HARLEM, and the organ at Freiburg
and all the other great musical instru
ments of the world. You would cal
such a man as that monster, and YET
you are more wicked if, with the human
voice, a musical instrument of more
wonderful adaptation than all the mu
sical instruments that man ever ere
ated, you shut it against the praise o.
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 tn,
soul of the natural world. The omnipo
, tent voice with which God command
ed the world into being seems to linge1
yet with its majesty and sweetness, ant
, you hear it in the grainfield, in th'
swoop of the wind amid the mountain
{ Businesses, in the canary's warble ant
the thunder shock, in the brooks tin
kle and the oceans paean. There ar
soft cadences in nature and loud notes
some of which we cannot hear at al
and others that are so terrific that w
cannot appreciate them.
The animalculae have their music
and the spicula of hay and the globul
I of water are as certainly resonant wit
the voice of God as the highest heaven
( in which the armies of the redeeme
: celebrate their victories. When tn
4 breath of the flower strikes the air, an
the wing of the FREELY cleaves it, ther
e is sound and there is melody; and a
9 to those utterances of nature whic
S seem harsh and overwhelming, it is a
d when you stand in the midst of grea
0 orchestra, and the sound almost rend
your ear because you are too nea
d to catch the blending of the music
g so, my friends, we stand too near tn
y desolating storm and the frighttr
f whirlwind to catch the blending of tn
= music, but when that music rises
2 where God is, and the invisible being
who float above us, then suppose th
r harmony is as sweet as it is tremendou
f In the judgment day, that day of tumu
a and terror, there will be no dissonane
v TO those who can appreciate the musi
/. it will be as when sometimes gre;
Il organist, in executing some great piec
y breaks down the instrument upo
which he is playing the music. S
+ when the great march of the judgmel
= day is played under the hand of cart
. quake, and storm and confagratio
the world itself will break down WI
the music that is played on it. II
. fact is, we are all deaf, or we shou
understand that the whole universe
'. but one harmony-the stars of ii
:. night only the ivory keys of gre
instrument on which Gods fingers pli
the music of the spheres.
Music seems dependent on the law
= acoustics and mathematics, and y
" where. these laws are not understood
Il all the art is practiced. There are t
4 day 500 musical journals in China. Tv
:. thousand years before Christ the Egy
!, tiana practiced this art. Pythagor
= learned it. Lasus of Hermione wro
essays a3si.. Plato and Aristotle intr