Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1902-02-13
A CHEERFUL SPIRIT,
DR.. TALMAGE's SUNDAY SERMON.
We Should Appreciate the Daily
Blessings That Are So Bounteously
Lavished Upon Us.

Lavished Upon Us.
WASHINGTON, D. C-1n this discourse
Dr.. Talmage calls attention to causes of
thanksgiving that are seldom recognized,
and shows how to, cultivate cheerful
spirit; text, Psalms xxxiii, 2, ssSing unto
hlm with psaltery and an instrument of
ten strings"
A musician as well as poet and con-
queror 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 his
est of musical instruments, Jubal invent
ed it, and he was the seventh descendant
from Adam. Its music was suggested by
the twang of the bowstring. Homer re-
| fers to the harp in the "Iliad." It is the
| most consecrated of all instruments. The
| aute 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. It. enters into the richest SYM
bollsm of the Holy Scriptures. The cap
tives in their sadness "hung their harps
upon the willows" In other ages it had
eight strings. David's harp had ten
with the theme his sympathetic voice, ac-
eompanied by exquisite vibration of the
chords, must have been overpowering.
With as many things to complain about
rs 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
and day and night. into a chorus. Absa-
lom's plotting and AhithophePs treachery
and hosts of antagonists and sleeplese
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 oi
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 al
all, play upon one string or two strings o,
three strings when we ought to take harp
fully chorded and with glad fingers sweer
for here and there a blessing we happen
to think of, we ought to rehearse all oul
blessings so far as VIC can recall them anC
obey the injunction of my text to sins
unto Him with an instrument of ter
strings.
Have you ever thanked Cod for delight
some food? What vast multitudes are a
hunge.ed from day to day or are obliged
tc take food not toothsome or pleasant tx
the taste! What millions are in struggle
for bread! A Confederate soldier went tt
the front, and his family were on tn.
verge of starvation, but they were kept VI
by the faith of child of that household
who, noticing that some supply was sure t.
come, xclasned, Mother, : think Coz
! xxyho &ho hot of h.
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 favor often touch your tongu'
and how the saccharin and the acid hav'
been afforded your palate? What fruits
what nuts, what meats regale your appe
tite, while many would be glad to get TIN
from your table.
For theSfne favors and the luxuriou
viands you have enjoyed for lifetime per
haps you have never expressed to God
word o. thanksgiving. That is one of tn,
ten >trings that you ought to hav,
thrummed in praise to God, but you hav
never yet put it in vibration.
Have you thanked God for eyesight a
dimmed by age, for the glass that brough
the page of the book within the compass
of the vision? Have you realized the pri
vation those suffer to whom the day is a
black as the night and who never sec tn
face OF father or, mother or wife or child o.
friend? Through what painful surger.
many have gone to get one glimpse of th'
light! The eye SO delicate aad beautiful
and useful that one of them is invaluable!
And most of us have two of these Won
ders of divine mechanism. The man o
millions Of dollars who recently went blins
from atrophy of optic nerve would hav,
been willing to give all his millions and be
come day laborer if he could have KEEP
off the blindness that gradually crept owe
his vision.
You may have noticed how Christ's sym
pathies were stirred for the blind. Oph
thalmia has always been prevalent in Pal
estine, the custom of sleeping on the house
tops, exposed to the dew and the f1yin.
dust of the dry season, inviting this dread
frl disorder. A large percentage of the in
habitants could not tell the difference be
tween II O'Clock at noon and = o'clock a
night. We are told OF six of Christ's mir
acles for the cure of these sightless ones
but suppose they were only specimens o
hundreds of restored visions.
What pitiiul spectacle Saul Of Tarsus
mighty man, three days led about in phys
ical as well as spiritual darkness, he wh'
afterward made Felix tremb,e by his eio
| CuCTce ara dWeQ t0c AC0eNlau pNIAOSO
piers on Mars Hill and was the only COO
| headed man in the Alexandria corn shil
that went to pieces on the rocks of Mile
tus, once The mighty prosecutor Of Saul
afterward the glorious evangelist Paul, fo
three days not abe to take safe stel
} without guidance!
Have you ever given thanks for tw'
eyes-nedla between the soul inside snt
| the world outside. media that no one bu
the infinite God could create: The eve
the window of our immortal nature, tn
gate through which all colors march. th
| picture gallery of the soul! Without tn
| eye this world is big dungeon. / fea
| that many OF us have never given on
hearty expression Of gratitude for treasur
fof sight, the 'css OF which is the creates
disaster possible, unless it be the loss 0
kthe mind. Those woadrous seven muscle
that turn the eye ND or down, to right o
lett or around No one but God coult
have created the retina. If we have eve
appreciated what God did when He CAV
US two eyes it was when we saw other
with ob,iterated vision
Alas. that only through ne privation 0
others we came to q realization of our owl
blessing! If you had harp in hand AM
swept all the strings of gratitude, yo'
! woa.d have struck this, which is one o
| the most aulcet of the ten strings.
u Further. notice how many pass through