The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-07-27
THE MISSION OF ART.
A Potent Factor in Uplifting the
Human Race.
DR.. TaImage breaches ON the Inhu-
ence Of s.Pleasant Pictures" In
the Development of Chris
tian Character.
copyright, 1899, by Louis Klopsch.]
MYo h N efon

kNOpyAa6ASs AoS'' W AASNAS NAA0E~~-''S
Washington,
Or. Talmage shows in this discourse |
how art may become one OF the |
mightiest agencies for the elevation
and salvation of the human race. The |
text is Isaiah 2:l2-16: 'The day OF the |
Lord of Hosts shall be upon |
all pleasant pictures
Pictures are by some relegated to the
| realm of the trivial, accidental, senti- |
mental or worldly, but my text shows
that God scrutinizes pictures, and
whether they are good or bad, whether
used, for right or wrong purposes, Is
matter of Divine observation and ar
raignment. The divine mission OF pic
lures is my subject. That the artists
pencil and the engraver's knife have
| sometimes been made subservient to
the kingdom of the bad is frankly ad-
mitted. After the ashes and scoria
were removed from Herculaneum and
Pompeii, the walls of those cities dis
covered to the explorers degradation
in art which cannot be exaggerated.
Satan and all his imps have always
wanted the lingering of the easel. They
would rather have possession of that
than the art of printing, for types are
not SO potent and quick for evil as pic
lures. The powers of darkness think
they have gained a triumph, and they
have when in some respectable parlor
or public art gallery they can hang
canvas embarrassing to the good, but
fascinating to the evil.
1t is not in spirit of prudery, but
backed up by Gods eternal truth, when
say that you have no right to hang i'll
your art rooms or your dwelling houses
that which would be offensive to good
people if the figures pictured were alive
in your parlor and the guests of your
household. A picture that you have to
hang in somewhat secluded place, or
that in public hall you cannot with
group of friends deliberately stand be-
fore and discuss, ought to have knife
stabbed into it at the top and cut clear
through to the bottom and stout fin
ger thrust in on the right side. ripping
clear through to the left. Piiny the
J elder lost his life by going near enough
. to see the inside of Vesuvius, and the
/ farther you can stand off from the
burning crater 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 and unbecom-
ing art galleries. Despoil mans inn
. agination, and he becomes mere car
r cass The show windows of English
, and American cities, in which the low
| theaters have sometimes hung long
lines of brazen actors and actresses in
style insulting to all propriety, have
made broad path to death for multi
tudes of people. But SO have all the
. other arts been at times suborned OF
. evil. How has music been bedraggled?
a Is there any place SO low down in dis
soluteness that into it has not been car
! ried David's harp, and Handel's organ,
and Gottschalk's piano, and Ole Bull's
, violin, and the flute, which, though
? named after so insignificant a thing as
! the Sicilian eel, which has seven spots
: on the side, like flute holes, yet fol
thousands of years has had an exalted
mission? Architecture, born in the
J, heart of Him who made the worlds, un
der it's arches and across it's floors, what
! bacchanalian revelries have been en-
l. acted:
d What poor world this would be if i
b were not for what my text calls "pleas
ant pictures! refer to your memory
q and mine when ask if your knowledg,
of the Holy Scriptures has not bee1
4 nightly augmented by the wood cut
a or engravings in the old family Bibl'
which father and mother read out o
4 and laid on the table in the old home
!. stead when you were boys and girls
l. The Bible scenes which we all carry il
a our minds were not got from the Bibl
"a typology, but from the Bible pictures
"a To prove the truth of it in my own case
the other day 1 took up the old fan1il..
N Bible which inherited. Sure enough
,r what l have carried in my mind OF ia
cob's ladder was exactly the Bible en-
>. cravings of Jacobs ladder, and so wit
Il Samson carrying off the gates OF Gazs
,s Elisha restoring the Shunammite'
the massacre of the innocents, Chris
a. blessing little children, the crucitixio
+ and the last judgment. My idea OF
!. these is that of the old Bible engra'
. ings. which scanned before | coul
a read a word. That is true with nin'
tenths of you. If / could swing ope
the door of your foreheads, would fin
that YOU are walking picture gallerie
. The great intelligence abroad about tn
Bible did not come from the gener;
lk reading of the book, for the majorit
1e of the people read it but little, if the
O. read it at all, but all the sacred scene
have been put before the great masse
and not printers ink, but the pictori
art, must have the credit of the achiev
- ment. First, painters pencil for II
favored few and then engraver.s pla
or wood cut for millions on millions!
What overwhelming commentary {
Of the Bible, what reinforcement for p
= triarchs, prophets, apostles and Chris
what distribution Of scTiptural know