The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-03-07

SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject; Beauties OF "a Cheerful Spirit
Causes D or Thanksgiving THAT Aie Sell
dom Recognized - Remember Daily
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. OF Friendship.


WASHINGTON, ID. C.-In this discourse
DR.. Ialmage calls attention to causes Oh
thanksgiving that are seldom recognized,
and shows how 30 cultivate "A cheerful
spirit: text. Psalms xxxii. ., Sing unto
him with .psaltery and an instrument OF
ten strings"
A musician as wen AZ poet and CON
quer0r and king was David, the author
of my text. lie hrst composed the sacred
rhythm and then played u upon a harp,
striking and plucking the strings with his
fingers and thumbs. The harp Is the old
est of musical instruments. Jubal invent
ed it, and he was the seventh descendant
from Adam. It's music was suggested by
the twang of the bowstring Homer re-
fers to the harp in the Had 1t Is the
most conseerated of all instruments The
flute is more mellow, the bugle more mar
tial, the cornet more incisive, the trumpet
more resonant, the organ more mighty, but
the harp has a tenderness and sweetness
belonging to no other instrument that /
know of. II enters into the richest sym
bolism Of the Holy Scriptures. The cap
tives in their sadness chung their harps
upon the willows" In other ages it had
eight strings. David's harp had ten
strings and when his great soul was ahre
with the theme his sympathetic voice, ac-
companied by exquisite vibration OF the
/ chords, must have been empowering.
/ with as many things to complain about
as any man ever had David wrote more
| anthems than any other man ever wrote.
/ He puts even the frosts and hailstorms
and tempests and creeping things and fly
ing f9Wl and the mountains and the hills
and day and night into a chorus. Absa-
Ions plotting and Ahithophel's treachery
and hosts Of antagonists and sleepless
nights and running sore could not hush
his psalmody. Indeed, the more his trou-
bles the mightier his sacred poems. The
words praise" and Song are SO often
repeated in his psalms that one would
think the typesetter's case containing the
letters with which those words are spelled
would be exhausted.
In my text David calls upon the people
to praise the Lord with an instrument OF
ten strings, like that which he was accus-
toned to finger The simple fact Is that
the most of us, if we praise the Lord at
all, play upon one string or two strings or
three strings when we ought to take a harp
fully chorded and with glad fingers sweep
all the strings Instead OF being grateful
for here and there a blessing we happen
to think Of, we ought to rehearse all our
blessings so far as we can recall them and
obey the injunction of my text to sing
, unto Him with an instrument Of ten
Have You ever thanked God for delight
some food? What vast multitudes are a
hungesed from day to day or are obliged
to take food not toothsome or pleasant K
the taste! What millions are in struggle
for bread! A Confederate soldier went tx
the front, and his family were on thu
verge of starvation, but they were kept VI
by the faith of a child of that household
Al,A ,lvr rv-,y
? come, eXcla med, Mother, l think Coz
+ hears when we scrape the bottom of tn
barrel"
Have you appreciated the fact that o.
: most of your tables are luxuries that d
= not come to all? Have you realized wha
varieties of flavor oftCn touch your tongu
. and how the saccharin and the acid hav
a been afforded your palate? What fruits
what nuts, what meats regale your appt
- tite, while many would be glad to get tn
crusts and rinds and Feelings that ia
from your table.
For the fine havors and the luxuriou
viands you have enjoyed for a lifetime PEI
haps you have never expressed to God
l. word OF thanksgiving. That is one of tn
ten 7trings that you ought to hay
thrummed in praise to God, but you hay
never yet put it in vibration.
Have you thanked God for eyesight {
d originally given to you or, after it VIZ
e dimmed by age, for the glass that brougl
the page of the book within the compai
of the vision? Have you realized the pr
e walton those suffer to whom the day is
e black as the night and who never see Il
face of father or mother or wife or child
: friend? Through what painful surgel
4 many have gone to get one glimpse Of Il
- light! The eye so delicate and beautif
and useful that one of them is invaluable
e. And most of us have two of these wo
lie ders of divine mechanism. The man
e. millions Of dollars who recently went bin
from atrophy of optic nerve would ha
been willing to give all his millions and
S come day laborer if he could have Ike
TX off the blindness that gradually crept oy
Of his vision.
You may have noticed how Christ's sy,
pathies were stirred for the blind. Or
~ thalmia has always been prevalent in p
10 estine, the custom of sleeping on the hou
r tops, exposed to the dew and the hyi
dust of the dry season, inviting this dres
"a full disorder. A large percentage of the
81 habitants could not tell the difference
- tween IL o'clock at noon and IL o'clock
DC night. We are told of six of Christ's m
acles for the cure of these sightless on
w but suppose they were only specimens
n. hundreds of restored visions.
n What pitiful spectacle Saul of Tars
mighty man, three days led about in phi
icaI as well as spiritual darkness, he W
ee afterward made Felix tremble by his c
lis uucnce and awed the Athenian philo
If piers on Mars Hill and was the only c
90 headed man in the Alexandria corn s.
that went to pieces on the rocks of M
tus, once The mighty prosecutor of Sa
its afterward the glorious evangelist Paul,
ar three days not able to take safe s
of without guidance
AS Have you ever given thanks for
eyes-medla between the soul inside {
The world outside, media that no one
DID the infinite God could create? The {
in the window of our immortal nature,
,rd gate through which all colors march,