The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-09
DIR. TALMACE'S SERMON.

thanksgiving that are seldom recognized ana shows how to cultivate a cheerful spirit; text, Psalms xxxiii, 2, 'Sing unto
 unto him with a psaltery and an instru- ment Of ten strings"
 A musician as well as poet and con- queror and king was David, the author
 or my text. He first composed tho sa-
 cred rhythm and then played 1t upon a harp striking and plucking the strings with his fingers and thumbs The harp is the oldest of musical instruments
 Jubal invented it., and he was the sev-
 enth descendant from Adam. Its music
 was suggested by the twang of the bow string. Homer refers to the harp in the "Iliad." It Is the most consecrated of all instruments. The flute is more mel low, the bugle more martial, the cornet more incisive, the trumpet more reson- ant. the organ more mighty. but the harp has tenderness and sweetness that
 belongs to no other instrument that I know Of. It enters into the richest sym
 bolism of the Holy Scriptures. The cap lives in their sadness hung their harps upon the willows The raptures of Heaven are represented under the figure of "harpers harping. on their harps." We learn from coins and medals that in the Maccabean age the harps had only three strings. In other ages it had eight
 strings Davids harp had ten strings ! and when his great soul was afire with
 the theme his sympathetic voice, accom- panied by exquisite vibration of the chords, must have been overpowering. With as many things to complain about l 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 | flying fowl and the mountains and the hills and day and night into a chorus. | treachery and hosts of antagonists and
 sleepless nights and running sore could | not hush his psaimodv. Indeed. the | more his troubles the mightier his sa- rl,o -.l- t.s.,n t.<tt AwNl
 song are so often repeated in his psalms that one would think the type
 setter's case containing the letters with
 which those words are spelled would be l exhausted.
 In my text David calls upon the people | to praise the Lord with an instrument l of ten strings, like that which he was | accustomed 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. In: stead 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 strings. Remember Daily Blessings.
 Have you ever thanked God for de- | lightsome food? What vast multitudes | are a-hungered 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 l that some supply was sure to come. ex- 1 claimed, Mother, I think God hears
 when We scrape the bottom of the bar | rel"
 Have you appreciated the fact that on | most of your tables are luxuries that do
 not come to all? Have you realized what l varieties of flavor often touch your i tongue and how the saccharin and the
 acid have been afforded your palate ? l What fruits. what nuts, what meats re
 gale your appetite. while many would | be glad to get the crusts and rinds and l peelings that fall from your table. For
 the fine favors and the luxurious vlands | you have enjoyed for lifetime perhaps | you have never expressed to God word | of thanksgiving. That is one of the ten
 strings that you ought to have thrummed l in praise to God, but you have never yet put it in vibration
 l Have you thanked God for eyesight l as originally given to you or. after It
 was dimmed by age, for the glass Shat | brought the page of the book within | the compass of the vision? Have you
 realized the privation 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 eyes so delicate and beautiful and
 useful that one of them is invaluable!
 And most of us have two of these won 1 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 become a day laborer if he could have kept off the blindness that gradu- | ally crept over his vision.
 You may have noticed how Christ s | sympathies were stirred for the blind. | Ophthalmia has been always prevalent | in Palestine, the custom of sleeping on | the nousetops, exposed to the dew ana
 the flying dust of the dry season, invlt- | ing this dreadful disorder. large per
 centage of the inhabitants could not | tell the difference between I2 o'clock
 at neon and 12 o'clock at night: We l are told of six of Christs miracles for | the cure of these sightless ones, but | suppose they were only specimens of l hundreds of restored visions. What d | pitiful spectacle Saul of Tarsus, the
 mighty man. three days led about in 1 physical as well as spiritual darkness, I he who afterward made Felix tremble | by his eloquence and awed the Athenian | philosophers on Mars Hill and was the 1 only cool headed man in the Alexandria
 cornship that went to pieces on the 9,;as rocns | of Saul afterward the glorious evan gelist Paul, for three days not able to | take a safe step without guidance.
 Two Strings of Gratitude.
 Have you ever given thanks for two | ey es-media between the soul inside and | the world outside, media that no one | but the infinite God could create? The | eve, the window of our immortal nature,
 the gate through which all colors march. | the picture gallery of the soul! Without | the eye this world is a big dungeon. I | fear that many of us have never given one hearty expression of gratitude for l treasure of sight, the loss of which is inc greatest disaster possible unless 1t 1 be the loss of the mind. Those wondrous | seven muscles that turn the eye up or | down, to right or left or around. No | one bu: God could have created the retina. If we have ever appreciated what | was when we saw others with obliterated | vision. Alas that only through the pri- l vation of others we came to reallZa- | ton of our own blessing! 1T you had l harm in hand and swept all the strings | of gratitude, you would have struckk | this, which Is one of the most dulcet or the ten strings. .,-, Further. notice now many pass through life in silence because the ear refuses | to do its office. They never hear music, | vocal or instrumental The thunder that | rolls its full diapason through the Heav- ems does not startle the prolonged stl- ence. The air that has for us so many melodies has no sweet sound Tor them. They live in a quietude that will not De broken until Heaven breaks in upon them with it's harmonies. The bird voices of the springtime. the chatter of the chill dren. the sublime chant of the sea. the
 solo of the cantatrice and the melody
 of the great worshiping assemblies mean
 nothing to them. Have we devoutly