Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1904-12-10
Caln1aQe
Sermon
BY Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmase. d. ID.


the approaching Christmas festivities
which, the preacher contends, should
be characterized by cheerfulness, kind
ness and beneHcence to the poor ana
the distressed. The text LIS Psalm
xcvi, "Oh, sing unto the Lord new
song"
The finest of pictures is yet to be
painted; the most perfect sculpture Is
vet to be chiseled; the best OF poems Is
yet to be penned; the sweetest and the
most inspiring Of songs is yet to be
composed. We speak of the master po-
cts, artists, sculptors and musicians as
though the poetical and artistic deeds
of the past could never be e1celied'
This. however, is not true. Homer ana
Virgil and Scott and Wordsworth ana
Burns and Tennyson and Longfellow
and Lowell and Poe are master poets
TO us merely because their poems excei
in beauty Of expression or delicacy OF
rhythm or depth of thought the pro-
ductions Of all other poets who nave
vet appeared. Raphael and Mlcnaei
Angelo and Murillo and Leonardo da
VIM, and Turner are master artists to
us merely because no artists nave yet
anneared who could approach them IN
perfection of form and glory OF COLOR
Heetboyen and Handel and Bach ana
Gluck and Haydn and Mozart ana
Chopin and Mendelssohn and wagner
are master musicians to us because
thev .urpass all other musicians In per
faction OF harmony and grandeur OF
conception. No composers before them
and none since have attained the mas
terry that they reach In their sublime
art.
But. though these old master musl-
clans nre masters to us, they were not
masters to themselves. They struggled
continually to give expression TO hlgh-
er and nobler conceptions tnat they
wore never able to write. Even In their
minds there were harmonies far better
than those that they have given us.
Their masterpieces fell far snort oi
their ideals. In their rhapsodies anu
dram lives they were continually e1-
ploring whole realms OF perfect souno
harmonies which were continually cry
ing 70 them: "Set me to music Play
me upon the piano or the harp. Sing
me In solo and oratorio." The result
was these old masters were continuaIiy
trying to make. more perfect conolns-
tions Of sound, to echo to mortal ears
the arrange. weird, transcendent voices
that were calling to them out OF the
musical worlds Of perfection"
To imprison behind musical bars the
perfect voices which they heard IN
their strange worlds became to the
great musical masters a llfe's passion
& One moonlight night Beethoven was
walking through one of the streets OF
Bonn. Suddenly he heard from an
opened parlor window some one play
ing one Of his sonatas. 1t was 10 beau'
I tifully rendered that the great com
noser entered the house and, seating
himself at the piano, began to play II
hImself. Beethoven seemed to be los'
in dreamland. He said, Listen; VII
inproyise a song to the moonlight
Then he went on, hearing the voices OF
the unseen world and reproducing tnen
.s part OF his matchless song called tn'
"doonlight Sonata" After he had nm
,sbed he rushed out Of the house. say
ing TO his companion: "Do not taN u
mel Let me hasten to my room that
may write out that dream OF the moon
light while I yet remember IT," Al
great musicians, like Beethoven, ar
continually reaching out for new com
q binations of song. They do this ever
though. like Count Zinzendor1, tne.
may have written over 1000 songs, OF
G. like Schmolke, they may have writtel
over 1,2OO musical pieces.
~ "sfnr Unto the Lord n New Song
David, the psalmist, was a great mu
sical composer. He always strove I
=, originate new musical themes. IL d
" could not compose new ones, tnen d
20 wanted to hear what some one else ma
composed. The first time Mozart near
one Of Bach's hymns played ne cris
out in ecstasy, THANK God, l lear
something absolutely new" SO Davl
- again and again In his psalms cries OF
for something new In musical prals'
We not only find the words OF my tex
"SIng unto the Lord new song,
the Ninety-si1th Psalm, but we nn
them In the Ninety-eighth and In tn
~ One Hundredth and Forty-ninth' an
we also find the same words IN u
, book of Isaiah. The song they lohse
ts to hear will yet be sung in the heavel
ly land. The Seer Of Patmos caugi
lts the echo Of 1t as he listened to the ne
sonp that no man could learn but u
host that had been redeemed and stoc
around the throne. What e1quisi
music It will be we cannot conceiV
but we know the theme that VIII
spire It. 1t Is the theme Of salvatlo
the incarnation of the Son OF God, u
coming to earth of that Divine Bell
"a whose birth among us we are ABOUT
celebrate. Let the same theme inspi
our humble strains; let us even no
az we mediate on that wonuro
ID. event. attune our hearts to that gio
GUS harmony.
de Our holiday song, in the first pla'
an should be a cheerful song. 1t snou
he not be sung in a minor key; it snou
en- not be a dirge or requiem, lament
M 70. a dead march in SAUL" 1t should
ne ne be an antiphony for the mathis OF
liz dead; IT should be Joy on the wing;
should be the chorus Of Laughing "
w ters;" 1t should be a hosanna, d
leluiah, a paean, do1ology ana
praise. Tears and sobs have no pia
in the new song which we should 81
during our coming holiday seasC
What said David in reference to u
new song-make a sad song unto