The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1899-09-09
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God,
But children of the heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad

Should speak their joys abroad.
Music seems TO have been born in thu
soul of the natural world. The omnipo
tent voice with which God command
ed the world into being seems to lingel
yet with its majesty and sweetness, anC
you hear it in the grGinfield, in the
swoop Of the wind amid the mountain
Businesses, in the canary's MARBLE and
the thunder shock, in the brooks tin,
kle 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 animalculae have their music,
and the spicuia of hay and the gIobule
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 ceaves it, there
is sound and there is melody; and as
to those utterances 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
whirlwind to caNch 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 tits tremendous,
In the judgment day, that day of tumult
and terror, there will be no dissonance
10 those who can appreciate the music.
1t will be as when sometimes a great
organist, in executing some great piece,
breaks down the instrument upon
which he is playing the music So,
when the great 1larch Of the judgment
day is played under the hand Of earth
quake, and storm and conaagration,
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 universe is
but one harmony-the stars of the
night only the ivory keys of a 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 to-
day 500 musical journals in China. Two
thousand years before Christ the Egyp-
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. Ny chief in
terest is in the music of the Bible.
The Bible, like a great harp with in
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
Jubal So far back as the thirty-first |
chapter of Genesis you find the first |
choir. All up and down the Bible YOU |
find sacred music-at weddings, at in |
augurations, at the treading of the wine 4
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
orel and trumpet and poured along the
great Judean highways a river OF har-
nony untilin and around the temple the
wealth of a nations song and gladness
lad accumulated. In our day we have
/ division Of labor in music, and we have
me man to make the hymn. another
nan to.make the tune. another man to
'lay it on the piano and another man
o sing it, Not so in Bible times.
firiam, the sister OF Moses. after the
lassage Of the Red sea. composed a
geology, set it to music. clappcd it on
cymbal and at the same time Gang it.