The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1899-09-09
A SERVICE OF SONG.
Rev. DR.. Talmage's Sermon on
Music in Religion.
The Hest Music Rendered Under
TroubIe-God Meant All 10
sing-The Proper Music
for n Church.
copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1891
all

Washington Sept. D
DIR. Talmage to-day discussed
most attractive department OF re
ligous worship-the service of song
His ideas will he received with interes
by all who love TO lift their voices il
praise in the Lords house. The tex
is Nehemiah 1867: And they hat
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 and
Sias when they sang praises to God
and the prisoners heard them. Tho
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 declare that il 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-
srcution 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
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 jubllant 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 IN ordinary throat and lungs
there are II direct muscles and 80 in
direct 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
giNcs us such "A 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
IIaarlem, and the organ at Freiburg,
and all the other great musical instru-
ments of the world. You would call
such Il man as that a monster, and yet
you are more wicked it, with the human
voice, n musical instrument Of more
wonderful adaptation than all the mu-
ated, you shut il against the praise of
God.
Let those refuse to sing
- Who never knew our God,
But chi .dren of the heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad
Music seems to have been born in ;he
soul of the natural world. The omnipo-
tent voice with which God command
ed the world into being seems to inger
Yet with its majesty and sweetness, and
YOU hear it in the grainticld, 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 cadenccs 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 globule
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 flowe strikes the air, and
the wing Of the FREELY cleayes ii, there
l. snnnI .pI thara II tpnlnIr. and AZ
10 those utterances of nature which
seem harsh and overwhelming, ii is as
when you stand in the midst of great
orchestra, and the sound almost rends
your ear because you are too near
10 catch the blending of the music,
So, my friends, we stand too near the
Iesolating storm and the irightful
whrlwind to catch the blending of the
music, but when that music rises tc
where God is, and the invisible beings
who float above us, then | suppose the
harmony is as sweet as it is tremendous,
In the judgment day, that day Of tumult
and terror, there will be no dissonancC
10 those who can appreciate the music.
1t will be as when sometimes great
organist, in executing some great piece,
breaks down the instrument upon
which he is playing, the music. So
when the great march of the judgment
day is played under the hand of earth
quake, and storm and conflagration,
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 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-
tans practiced this art. Pythagoras
learned it. Lasus OF Hermione wrote
essays on it. Plato and Aristotle intro
duced IL into their schools, but have
not much interest in that. My chief in
terest is in the music OF the Bible.
The Bible, like great harp with in
Vulnerable strings, swept by the fingers
OF inspiration, trembles with it. SO far