The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1899-09-08
A SERVICE OF SONG.
Rev. DR.. Talmage's Sermon on
Music in Religion.
The Best Music Rendered Under
Trouble-God Meant All TO
sing-The Proper Music
for q Church.
Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1899. ]

by all who love to lift their voices il
praise In the Lords house. The tex
Is Nehemiah 1901: And they Ia,
two hundred forty and five singing mel
and singing women"
The best music has been rendered un
der trouble. The first duet that know
anything of was given by Paul ant
Silas when they sang praises To Coo
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
10 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
caunot 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-
ton Of the human throat as indicative
OF what God means us TO do with it?
In only an ordinary throat and lungs
there are IL direct muscles and 80 in
direct muscles that can produce a very
great variety of sounds. What does
that mean? Ii means that you should
sing! Do you suppose that God, who
gives us such "a musical instrument as
that, intends us 10 keep il 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 ipstru-
ments of the world. You would call |
such a man as that a monster, end vet |
you are more wicked if, with the human |
voice, a musical instrument of more
adaptation than all the mu-
steal instruments that man ever Gre
ited, you shut il 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 d
oul of the natural world. The omnipo- |
ent voice with which God command |
d the world into being seems 10 linger |
'et with its majesty and sweetness, and
ou hear it in the grainfield, in the
woop of the wind amid the mountain
astnesses, in the canary's MARBLE and
he thunder shock, in the brooks tim
lie and the oceans paean. There are
oft cadences in nature and loud notes,
ONE of which we cannot hear at all
nd others that are so terrific that we
annot appreciate them.
The animaiculae have their music,
nd the spicula of hay and the globule
water are as certainly resonant with
he voice of God as the highest heavens
4 which the armies of the redeemed
Celebrate their victories. When the
reath of the flower strikes the air, and
he wing of the freely cleaves az, there
sound and there is melody; and as
} those utterances of nature which |
aem harsh and oyerw helming, il is as
hen you stand in the midst of great {
rchestra, and the sound almost rends |
our ear because you are too near |
catch the blending of the music,
}, my friends, we stand too near the |
asolating storm and the trightful {
hirlwind TO catch the blending of the {
usic, but when that music rises 10
here God is, and the invisible beings I
no hoat above US, then | suppose the \
irmony is as sweet as itis tremendous, {
the judgment day, that day of tumulf 5
I'd terror, there will be no dissonano 5
those who can appreciate the music. '
will be as when sometimes a great (
ganist, in executing some great piece, i
eaks down the instrument upon I
hich he is playing the music So, :
len the great march of the judgment I
Y is played under the hand o" earth 4
axe, and storm and conhagration, n
e world itself will break down win
z music that is played en- it. The ?
Il is, we are all deaf, or we should a
derstand that the whole universe is n
one harmony-ths stars of the o
yht only the ivory Keys of great r.
'trument ON which Gods fingers play G
music Of the spheres. II
iusic seems dependent on the law of G
oustics and mathematics, and vet Il
ere these laws are not understood at "
the art Is practice6. There are to- oil
500 nasical journals in China. Two "
usaLd years before Christ the Egyp- e,
Is practiced this art. Pythagoras ii
rned IL. Lasus of Hermione wrote "
avs an it. Plato and Aristotle intro ID,
ed it into their schools, but have W
much interest in that. Ny chief in a,
est is an the music of the Bible. Iii
he Bible, like great harp with in III
nerable strings. swept by the fingers nj
aspiration, trembles with il. So far Je
X as the fourth chapter of Genesis W
ind the first organist and harper
Ell. So far back as the thirty-first til
pier OF Genesis you find the first mi
lr. All up and down the Bible you &c
iacred munc-at weddings, at in IA
uIaf innc ha traals,.. q , A. .. |