Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1902-02-07
A CHEERFUL SPIRIT
DR.. Talmage Says Is Causes for Thanks.
giving That Are Seldom Recognized.
Remember the Daily Blessings - Comforts
of Friendship.

WASHINGTON, .. Gin this discourse
| DR.. Talmagc calls attention to causes OF
Thanksgiving that are seldom recognized,
and shows how to cultivate cheerful
! spirit; text, Psalms xxXiil, ., sang unto
him with a psaltery and an instrument OF
ten strings"
A musician as we'll as poet and con-
! qlcror and king was David, the author
| OF my text He first composed the sacred
| rhythm and then played it upon harp,
striking and plucking the strings with bis
fingers and thumbs. The harp is the old
est Of musical instruments. Jubal invent
! cd it, and he was the seventh descendants
from Adam. It's music was suggested by
the twang of the bowstring.. Homer re-
fer3 to the harp in the 'Iliad." 1t Is the
most consccMtcd Of all Instruments. The
flute is more mellow, the bugle more NOR
tial, the cornes more incisive, the trumpet
, more resonant, the organ more mighty, but
the harp has tenderness and sweetness
belonging to no other instrument that l
lnoH of. 1t enters into the richest SYM
bolisn Of the Holy Scriptures. The cap
t;vcs in their sadness hung their harps
upon the willows" In other ages it had
eight strings. David's harp had ten
strings, and when his great soul was aflre
with the theme his sympathetic voice, &C
compaIied by exquisite vibration OF the
chords, must have been overpowering.
With as many things to complain about
as any man ever had David wrote more
anthems than any other man ever wrote.
lie puts even the frosts and hailstormS
and tempcsts and creeping things and hy-
ing fowl and the nountains and the bills
and day and night into chorus. Ahss-
Ions plotting and Ahithophel's treachery
and hosts Of antagonists and sleeplcss
nights and a running sore could not hush
his psclmody Indeed, the more his trou-
bles the mightier his sacred poems. The
words praise and Song arc SO often
repeated in his psalmo 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, il we praise the Lord at
all. play upon one string or two strings OF
three strings when we ought to take harp
fully chordcd and with glad fingers sweep
all the strings. Instead OF being grateful
fo2 here and there blessing we happen
to think of, we ought to rehearse oil our
blessings so far as we can recall them and
obey the injunction OF my text to sing
unto Hin with an instrument OF ten
strings.
Have you ever thanked God for delight
some food? What vast multitudes are q.
hungeccd from day to day or are Obliged
to take food not toothsome or pleasant to
the taste! What millions are in struggle
for bread! a Confederate soldier went to
the front, and his family were on the
verge OF starvation, but they were kept up
by the faith of a child of that household,
who, noticing that some supply was cure to
come, excla med, Mother, 1 think God
hears when VIC scrape the bottom OF Shc
barrel"
Have you appreciated the fact that on
most OF your tables are Injuries that do
not come to all? Have you realized what
varieties of flavor often touch your tongue
and how the saccharin and the acid have
| been afforded your palate? What fruits,
| what nuts, what meats regale your Apo
lite, while many would be glad to, get the
crusts and rinds and Feelings that fail
! from your table.
For the fine favors and the luxurious
viandg you have enjoyed for lifetime per
haps you have never expressed to God q
word o. thanksgiving That is one CT the
ten ,tring5 that YOU ought to have
| Ia pIdJSS " NfOuj Dut SNo ~"
| never yet put it i vibration.
Have YOU thanked God for eycsight as
originally given to you or, aitec 1t was
dimrled by age, for the glass that brought
the page of the book within the compass
OF the vision? Have you realized the pri
walton those suffer to whom the cay is a.
black as the night and who never see the
face of father or mother or wife or child OF
friend? Through what painful surgery
many have gone to set one glimpse OF tha
light! The eye so delicate and beautiful
and useful that one OF them is Invaluable!
And most Of us have two OF these won
ders of divine mechanism. The man Of
millions of dollars who recently went blind
from atrophy Of optic nerve would have
been willing to give all his millions and be-
come q day laborcr ii he could have KEEP,
of TIC blindness that gradually crept ovel
his vision.
You may have noticed how Christ's sym
pathic3 were stirred for the blind. OBI
thGlmia has always been prevalent in Pal
cStinc, the custom Ct sleeping on the house
tops, exposed TO the dew and the flying
dust Of the Cry. season, inviting this dread
ful disorder. A large percentage of the III
| habitants could not tell the difference be
| tween r O'Clock at noon and II o'clock al
night. We arc told of six of Christ's mir
aclcs for the cure of these sightless ones
bu5 l suppose they were only specimens o.
hundreds OF restored visions.
What a pitiful spectacle Saul OF Tarsus
mighty man, three days led about in phys
ical as wei as spiritual darkness, he who
aftcrward made Felix tremble by his elo
oucncc and awed the Athenian philoso
phcr5 on Mars Hill and was the only COO
headed man il the Ale; andria corn shr
that went to pieces on the rocks of Mile
tus, once he mighty prosecutor OF Saul
afterward the glorious evangelist Paul, fol
three days not able to take safe stel
without guidance!
Fave YOU ever given thanks for two
eycs-medla between the soul inside and
the world outside, media that no one but
tic infinite Cod could create? The eye
the window Of our immortal nature, the
cate through which all colors march, the
picture gallery of the soul Without the
eye this world is big dungeon. l feal
hearty expression Of gratitude for treasure
of sight the loss of which is the greatest
disaster possible, unless it be the loss Of
the mind. Those wondrous seven muscles
that turn the eye up or down, to right o,
lett or aroulG No one but God could
have created The retina. If we have ever
appreciated what God did when He gave
u3 two eyes it was when we saw others
with oblitcrated vision.
Alas, that only through the privation Of
others we came to realization of our own
blessing! If you had harp in hand and
swept all the strings of gratitude, YOU
would have struck this which is one 'oi
The most dulcet of the ten strings.
Further, notice how many pass through
life in silence because the ear refuses to