Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-09-20
CalnaQe
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmase. ID. ID.

Los Angeles. Cal, Sept 15.-In this
sermon the preacher shows that to the
man or woman who is living Alright
and in harmony with Gods laws
those laws are no longer 4 burden, but
are transformed into continual song
or encouragement. The text is Psalm
cxix. %. Thy statutes have been my
songs in the house of my pilgrimage"
Never did sculptor's chisel create
two statues of more opposite charac-
ter than are Michael Angeles Moses"
and David" When you study these
two wonderful fg,wzs 1t does not seem
possible that the same human brain
could conceive both. They are differ
ent as the storm cloud and the sun
shine. as the rumbling onrushing ava
lanche breaking loose from its anchor
age and the bubbling laughing leap
ing. happy brook gurgling down the
mountain side. They are different as
the shrieks and the groans of the car
mage OF battle and the soft cooling lul-
labies OF mother rocking her baby
to sleep. In other words, the one stat
ue represents power and the other
love. The one represents the crags
and the cliffs and inaccessible heights
OF old Sinai, with its bare rocks In
dented by tile sword cuts of the light
ningS. and the other represents the
melodious harp of the young shepherd
boy singing to his sheep among the
wild flowers of the valley and the
dreamy relaxation of the poet while.
lying upon a couch of softest leaves,
he watches the parent birds feed their
young among the swaying branches
overarching his noontide resting place.
Never did Phidias' colossal statue OF
"Zeus' at Ellis or Canova's "Theseusv
at Vienna represent greater strength
than does Angeles Moses" at Rome.
Never did Praxiteles' "Aphrodite" at
Cnidus or the Sleeping Ariadne" at
Rome reveal more love or poetic SYM
metry than does Angeles marvellous
statue Of David" at Florence.
But, though we have a perfect right
to think Of David the musician, David
the poet, David the imaginative youth,
who Is always singing the praises OF
God, wonder il we have not some
times overlooked the fact that David
sang his songs OF triumph under the
shadow OF old Mount Sinai and that he
had but a vague and shadowy idea of
the tenderness OF the cross of Jesus
Christ. The poetic eyes of David In
the statue may not search us from out
OF deep sockets or from under over
archtng forehead, as do the penetrating
eyes OF Moses the lawgiver but the
same thought that teemed in the brain
or Moses lived and throbbed in the
brain OF David. All through the Psalms
L md that the Ten Commandments of
Mount Sinai are the skeletons upon
which David the psalmist based his
praises. When David writes his most
beautiful songs he seems to be echoing
In rhyme what Moses, the great law
giver, had written 500 years before I'm
the books OF the Pentateuch. David's
poetry is only Moses laws and COM
mandments set to music.
The Law of God.
1t was so with the other poets whose
compositions are in that great hymnal.
Turn almost anywhere in the Psalms
and you can find this fact illustrated.
What Is the burden of the One Hun
dred and Nineteenth Psalm? 1t is the
law. the rock ribbed law of God. "Oh.
how 1 love thy law! 1t is my medita-
ton day and night" is the song. What
is the burden OF the First Psalm? 1t
is the law OF God. What is the burden
or the Thirty-seventh Psalm and the
Forteth Psalm and the Seventy-elghth
Psalm? 1t Is the law OF God. And
today In the words OF my text the
shepherd poet tells us that the statutes
or God have been his songs in the
house OF his pilgrimage all through his
life. The law OF Moses is here found
to be the theme of the sweetest singer
Israel ever produced.
Did you ever stop to think that the
laws OF God could be set to music?
On, how prosaic a book of common
law is TO the average man! When
my brother was young student In
the law college he one day came to
my father and placed before him a
lawbook and said: Father, read that,
DID you ever read any set OF rules so
dry or so uninterestingT Truly, for
young man lawbook is a dry and
embarrassing book, but when the
young man has mastered those duh
codes and uses them in his practice
they are changed from dry skeletons
into living forces. Then he sees how
those legal enactments are the great
barriers by which the rights of men
are protected against the assaults OF
evildoers. So with David. When he
mastered the principles OF Gods laws
he was able to clothe them with poetic
imagery. lie saw the far reaching eff
feet OF those laws. Instead of being
collection Of skeletons bleaching i'm n
cemetery they became to him a living
power: AS living principles they well
coined him at the cradle. They guild
ed him through chiIdhood's hours.
They led him forth into the struggle of
young manhood. They were the crown
OF glory OF his old age. Thus as an
aged servant OF God he celebrates the
glory OF old Mount Sinai as he sings.
Thy statutes have been my songs in
the house OF my pilgrimage" Now let
us try to understand how Gods laws
have become the keynotes OF David's
songs.
His Lullaby Song.
In the first place, the statutes OF the
Lord were the psalmist's cradle songs.
They were the lullabies with which his
mother used TO sing him to sleep. They
we're the divine promises with which
God adopted him as his child. The
covenant with which Abraham's chill
dren and children's children became
part of Gods great redemption plan
was the same covenant with which
Christians enter into adoption as Gods
children. And they are the same d.
vine promises with which ouY ohiI5rar