The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1902-02-19
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Beauties Of q Cheerful Spirit
Causes r or Thanksgiving That Al Sell
dom Recognized - Remember Daily
Blessinps-C -Comforts of Friendship.

LIT. ldIInaRe Calls dCIe1IlOu W CcusSS VI
thanksgiving that are seldom recognized,
spirit; text, Psalms xxxiii, 2, Sing unto
him with psaltcry and an instrument Of
ten strings"
A musician as well as poet and con-
quernr and king was David, the author
of my text. He first composed the sacred
rhythm and then played it 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. Its music was suggested by
the twang of the bowstring. Homer re-
fers to the harp in the "Iliad." 1t is the
most consecrated 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 tenderness and sweetness
belonging to no other instrument that l
know Of. It enters into the richest SYM
bolism of the Hoy Scriptures. The cap
upon the willows" In other ages it had
eight string5. pavid's harp had ten
strings, and when his great soul was afre
with the theme his sympathetic voice, ac-
companied by exquisite vibration Of the
chords, must have been overpoweriI
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 hailstorns
and tempes.s and creeping things and fly
ing fowl and the mountains and the hills
and day and night into chorus. Absa-
lom's plotting aid AhithophePs treachery
and hosts of antagonists and sleepless
nights and a 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
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 harp
fully chorded and with glad fingers sweep
all the strings. Instead of being grateful
for here and there 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
INTO Him with an instrument of tea
strings.
Have you ever thanked God for delight
some food? What vast multitudes are a.
hunge,ed 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 sure to
come, exclaimed, Mother, think God
hears, when we scrape the bottom OF the
barrel"
Have you appreciated the fact that on
most of your tables are luxuries that do
not come to all? Have you realized what
varieties of favor often touch your tongue
and how the saccharin and the acid have
been afforded your palate? What fruits,
what nuts, what meats regale your appe-
tite, while many would be glad to get the
crusts and rinds and peelings that fall
from your table.
For the fine favors and the luxurious
viands you have enjoyed for lifetime per-
haps you have never expressed to God
word OF thanksgiving. That is one of the
ten :trings that you ought to have
tbrummed in praise to God, but you have
never vet put it in vibration.
Have you thanked God for eyesight as
originally given to you or, after it was
dimmed by age, for the glass that brought
the page Of the book within the compass
of the vision? Have you realized the prl-
vation those suffer to whom the day is as
black as the night and who never see the
face of father or mother or wife or child or
friend? Through what painful surgery
many have gone to get one glimpse of the
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 a day laborer if he could have kept
off the blindness that gradually crept over
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 flying
dust of the dry ceason, inviting this dread
full disorder. A large percentage OF the IN
habitants could not tell the difference be-
tween - o'clock at noon and II O'Clock at
night. We are told of six of Christ's mir
acles for the cure of these sightless ones,
hut suppose they were only specimens OF
hundreds of restored visions.
What pitiful spectacle Saul Of Tarsus,
mighty man, three days led about in phys
ical as well as spiritual darkness, ne who
aftcrward made Felix trenble by his elo-
oucncc and awed the Athenian philoso:
piers on Mars Hill and was the only cool
headed man in the Alexandria corn ship
that went to pieces on the rocks OF Mile
tus, once he mighty prosecutor OF Saul,
afterward the glorious evangelist Paul, for
three days not able to take safe step
without guidance!
Have you ever given thanks for two
eyes-medla between the soul inside and
the world outside, media that no one but
the infinite Cod could create? The eye,
the windcw CT Our immortal nature, the
gate through which all colors march, the
picture gallery of the soul! Without the
eve this world is big dungeon: l fear
that many OF us have never given one
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 wonCrous seven muscles
that turn the eye W or Gown, to right or
LETT or around. No one but Cod could
have created the retina. If We have ever
appreciated what God cid when He gave
us two eyes it was when we saw others
with obliterated vision.
Alas, that only through the privation OF
others VIC 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 Of
the most dulcet of the ten strings.
Further, notice how many pass through
life in silence because the ear refuses tc
do 1t. Office. They never hear music, vo.
cal o. instrumental. The thunder that
rolls it's full diapason through the heav-
ems does not startle the prolonged silence.
The air that has for us so many melodies
has no sweet sound for them. They live in
q ouietude that will not be broker, until