Hope Republican, Volume 2, Number 11, Hope, Bartholomew County, 6 July 1893 — Page 3

MINISTRYJ)F NATURE. How the Songs of Birds Show Forth the Family Life. fhfilr Songs Are Systematic and Taught by the Creator—Dr. Talmage's Sermon. Rev. Dr. Dr. Talrnage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject, “The Song of Birds.” Text: Psalms civ, 12—“By them shall the fowls of heaven have their habitation, which sing abong the branches.” Ho said; There is an important and improving subject to which most people have given, no thought and concerning which this is the first public discussion—namely, “The Song of Birds.” If all that has been written concerning music by human voice or about music sounded on instrument by finger or breath were put together, volume by the side of volume, it would fill a hundred alcoves of the national libraries, but about the songs of birds there is as much silence as though a thousand years ago the last lark had with his wing swept the door latch of heaven, and as though never a whippoorwill had sung its lullaby to a slumbering forest at nightfall. We give a passing smile to the call of the bobolink or the chirp of a canary, but about the origin, about the fiber, about the meaning, about the mirth, about the pathos, about the inspiration, about the religion in the song of birds, the most of us are either ignorant or indifferent. A caveat I this morning file in the high court of heaven against that almost'univcrsal irreligion.

First —I remark that which will surprise many, that the soap of birds is a regulated and systematic song, capable of being written out in note and in staff and in bar and clef as much as anything that Wag®er or Schumann or Handel ever put on paper. As we pass the grove where the flocks are holding matin of vesper service we are apt to think that the sounds are extemporized, the rising or falling tone is a mere accident, it is flung up and down by haphazard, the bird did not know what it was doing, it did not care whether it was a long meter psalm or a madrigal. What a mistake. The musician never put on the music rack before him Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” or Beethoven’s “Concerto” in G or Spohr’s B flat symphony with more definite idea as to what he was doing than every bird that can sing at all .confines himself to accurate and predetermined rendering. The oratorios, the chants, the carols, the overtures, the interludes, the ballads, the canticles that this morning were heard or will this evening be heard in the forest have rolled down through the ages without a variation. Even the chipmunk’s song was ordained clear back in the eternities. At the gates of paradise it sang in sounds like the syllables “Kuk!” “Kuk!” “Kuk!” The thrush of the creation uttered sounds like the word “Teacher!” “Teacher!” “Teacher!” In the summer of the year 1 the yellowharnmer trilled that which sounded like the word “If!” “If!” “If!” as in this summer it trills “If!” “If!” “If!” ' X'ne Maryland yellowthroat inherits and bequeaths the tune sounding like the words “Pity me, pity me, pity me!” The white sparrow’s “Tseep, tseep,” woke our greatgrandfathers as it will awaken our great-grandchildren. The “Tee-ka-tee-ka-tee-ka” of the birds in the first century was the same as the “Tee-ka-tee-ka-tee-ka” of the nineteenth century.

The goldfinch has for 6,000 years been singing “De-ree dee-ee-ree.” But these sounds, which we put in words, they put in cadences, rhythmic, soulful and enrapturing. Now, if there is this order and systematization and rhythm all through God's creation, does it not imply that we should have the same characteristics in the music we make or try to make? Is it not a wickedness that so many parents give no opportunity for the culture of their children in the art of sweet sound? If God stoops to educate every bluebird, oriole and grosbeak in song, how can parents be so indifferent about the musical development of Idhe immortals in their household? While God will accept our attempt to sing, though it be only a hutn or a drone, if we can do no better, what a shame that in this last decade of the nineteenth century, when so many orchestral batons are waving and so many skilled men and women are waiting to offer instruction,there are so many people who cannot sing with any confidence in the house of God, because they have had no culture in this sacred art, or while they are able to sing a fantasia at a piano amid the fluttering fans of social admirers nevertheless (feel utterly helpless when in church the surges of an “Ariel” or an “Antioch” roll over them. The old fashioned country singing school, now much derided and caricatured—and indeed sometimes It was diverted from the real design into the

I culture/)! the soft emotions rather than the voice—nevertheless did admirable work, and in our churches we need singing schools to prepare our Sabbath audiences for prompt and spontaneous and multipotent psalmody. This world needs to be stormed with hallelujahs. We want a hemisphere campaign of h osannahs. From hearing a blind beggar sing Martin Luther went home at forty years of age to write his first hymn. In the autumn I hope to have a congregational singing school here during the week, which shall prepare the people for the songs of the holy Sabbath. If the church of God universal is going to take the world for righteousness, there must be added a hundredfold of more harmony as well as a hundredfold of more volume to sacred music.

Further, I notice in the song of birds that it is a divinely taught song. The rarest prima donna of all the earth could not teach the robin one musical note. A kingfisher flying over the roof of a temple a-quake with harmonies would not catch up one melody. From the time that the first bird's throat was fashioned on the banks of the Gihon and Hiddekel until to-day on the Hudson or Rhine, the winged creature has learned nothing from the human race in the way of carol or anthem. The feathered songsters learned all their music direct from God. He gave them the art in a nest of straw or moss or sticks and taught them how to lift that song into the higher heavens and sprinkle the earth with its dulcet enchantments. God fashioned, God tuned, God launched, God lifted music! And there is a kind of music that the Lord only can impart to you, my hearer. There have been depraved, reprobate and blasphemous souls which could sing till great auditoriums were in raptures. There have been soloists and bassos and baritones and sopranos whose bril-. liancy in concert halls has not been more famous than their debaucheries. But there is a kind of song which, like the song of birds, is divinely fashioned. Songs of pardon. Songs of divine comfort. Songs of worship. “Songs in the night” like those which David and Job mentioned. Songs full of faith and tenderness and prayer like those which the Christian mother sings over the sick cradle. Songs of a broken heart being healed. Songs of the dying flashed upon by opening portals of j amethyst.

Further, I remark in regard to the song of birds that it is trustful and without any fear of what may yet come. Will you tell me bow it is possible for that wren, that sparrow, that chickadee, to sing so sweetly when they may any time be pounced on by a hawk and torn wing from wing? There are cruel beaks in thicket and in sky ready to slay the song birds. Herods on .the wing. Modocs of the sky. Assassins armed with iron claw. Murderers of song floating up and down the heavens. How can the birds sing amid such perils? Beside that, how is a bird sure to get its food? Millions of birds have been starved. Yet it sings in the dawn without any certainty of breakfast or dinner or supper. Would it not be better to gather its food for the day before, vocalizing? Besides that, the hunters are abroad. Ban* goes a gun in one direction. Bang! goes a gun in another direction. The song will attract the shot and add to the peril. Besides that, yonder is a thundercloud, and there may be huhricine and hail to be let loose, and what then will become of you, the poor warbler? Besides that, winter wall come, and it may be smitten (town before it gets to the tropics. Have you never seen the snow strewn with the birds belated in their migration?

For every bird a thousand perils and disasters hovering and sweeping round and round. Yet there it sings, and it is a trustful song. The bird that has it the hardest sings (the sweetest. The lark from the slnpe of her claws may not perch on a tree. In the grass her nest is exposed to every hoof that passes. One oflthe poorest shelters of all the earfn is the lark's nest. If she sings at) all, you will expect her to render] the saddest of threnodies. No, no—she sings exultingly an hour without a pause and mounting 3,000 feet frithout losing a note. Would God we all might learn the lesson. Whatever perils, whatever perils, whatever bereavements, whatever trials are yet to come, sing—sing with all your heart and sing with all your lungs. If you wait until ail the hawks of trouble have folded their wings and all the hunters of hate have unloaded their guns and all the hurricanes of disaster have spent their fury, you will never sing at all. Further, in the sky galleries there are songs adapted to ail moods. The. meadowlark is mournful, and'the goldfinch joyous, and the grosbeak prolonged of note. But the libretto of nature is voluminous. Are you | sad, you can hear from the brpvers the echo of your grief. Are ] y° u j glad, you can hear an echo of |° ur | S happiness. Are you thoughtful]? 011 1 1 can hear that which will plunge j 011

into deeper profound. Are youf iveary, you may catch a resttul air. So the songs of birds are administrative in all circumstances. And we would do well to have a hymnology for all changes of condition. You may sing your woes into peace and rouse your joys into greater altitudes. Upon every condition of body and soul let us try the power of song. The multitudinous utterances of grove and orchard and garden and forest suggest most delightful possibilities. Further, I notice that the song of birds is a family song. Even those of the feathered throng which have no,song at all make what utterances they do in sounds of their owntamily of birds. The hoot of the owl, the clatter of the magpie, the crow of the chanticleer, the drumming of the grouse, the laugh of the loon in the Adirondack's, the cackle of the hen, the scream of the eagle, the croak of the raven, are sounds belonging to each particular family, but when you come to those which have real songs, how suggestive that it is always a family song. All the skylarks, all the nightingales, all the cuckoos, prefer the song of their own family and never sing anything else. So the most deeply impressive songs we ever sing arc family songs. They have come down from generation to generation. You were sung to sleep in your infancy and childhood by songs that will sing to your soul forever. Where was it, my brother or sister, that you heard the family song—on the banks of the Ohio, or the Alabama, or the Androscoggin, or the Connecticut, or the Tweed, or the Thames, or the Raritan? That song at eventide, when you were tired out—indeed too tired to sleep, and you cried with leg ache, and you were rocked and sung to sleep —you hear it now, the soft voice from swfeet lips, she as tired, perhaps more tired than you, but she rocked and you slumbered. Oh' those family songs!

While this summer more than usual out of doors let us have what my text suggests—an out of doors religion. What business had David, with all the advantages of a costly religious service and smoking incense on the altar, to be listening to the chan tresses among the tree branches? Ah, he wanted to make himself and all those who should come after him more alert and more worshipful amid the sweet sounds and beautiful sights of the natural world. There is an old church that needs to be rededicated. It is older than St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s or St. Mark’s or Sfc Sophia’s or St. Isaac’s. It is the cathedral of nature. That is the church in which the services of She millenium will be held. The buildings fashioned out of stone and brick and mortar will not hold the people. Again, the Mount of Olives will be the pulpit. Again the Jordan will be the baptistry. Again the mountains will be the galleries. Again the skies will be the blue ceiling. Again the sunrise will be the front door and the sunset the pack door of that temple. Again the clouds will be the upholstery and the morning mist the incense. Again the trees will be the organ loft where “the fowls of heaven have their habitation which sing among the branches. Saint Francis d’Assisi preached a sermon to birds and pronounced a benediction upon them, but all the birds preach to us, and their benediction is almost supernal. While this summer amid the works of God let us learn responsivenessSurely if we cannot sing we can hum a tune, and if we cannot hum a tune we can whistle. If we can not be an oriole, we can be a quail. In some way let us demonstrate our gratitude to God. Let us not be beaten by the chimney swallow and the humming bird and the brown thrasher. Let us try to set everything in our life to music,and if we cannot give the card of the song sparrow take the plaint of the hermit thrush. Let our life be an anthem of worship to the God who created us and the ( rist who ransomed us and the holy Ghost who sanctifies us. And our last song—may it be our best song! The swan was thought by the ancients never to sing except when dying.

In the time of Edward IV no one was allowed to own a swan except he were a king's son or had considerable estate. Through one or two hundred years of life that bird was said never to utter anything like music until its last moments came, and then lifting its crested beauty it would pour forth a song of almost matchless thrill resounding through the groves. And so, although the struggles of life may be too much for us, and we may find it hard to sing at all when the last hour comes to you and me, may there be a radiance from above and a glory settling round that shall enable us to utter a song on the wings of which we shall mount to where the music never ceases and the raptures never die. Mr. Fewscads —What o'clock is it? Gus Bondclipper—It’s just ten. Fewscads —What a singular Coincidence! I was just going to ask you to lend me f 10,

INDIANA POSTMASTERS. Number of Them Receive Much-De-sired Increases In Salary. The Postoflice Department has completed the annual review and consequent readjustment of the salaries of the postmasters of the Presidential offices. The following are the changes in salaries In Indiana; llatesville, from $1,100 to $1,200; Bedford, 1,700 to 1,800; Bloomfield, 1,000 to 1,100; Bloomington, 1.900 to 2,000; Bourbon, 1,000 to 1,100; Goodland, 1,300 to 1,500; Greencastle, 3,100 to 3,200; Greenfield, 1.700 to 1,800; Hammond, 3,100 to 2,300; Hartford City, 1,000 to 1,700; Huntington, 2.300 to 3,10 ); Jeffersonville, 1,900 to 2,100; Kendallville, 1,900 to 1,800; Knightstown, 1,500 to 1,600; Brazil. 1,800 to 2,000; Cannelton, 1;000 to 1,100; Clinton, 1,106 to 1,200; Connersvllle, 3,300 to 2,300; Covington, 1,200 to L300; Crowh Point, 1,200 to 1,300; Dunkirk, 1,000 to 1,300; Elkhart, 2.700 to 3,100; Elwbocl, 1,700 10 1,900; Fairmouut, 1,100 to 1,300; Fort Wayne, 3.100 to 3,300; Lafayette, 3,800 to 2,900; Laporte, 2.300 to 2,400; Liberty, 1,300 to 1.400; Llgonler,1,500 to 1,600; Michigan City, 3.100 to 2,300; Mishawaka, 1,800 to 1,900; Muncie, 2,500 to 3,600; Nappanee, 1.100 to 1,000; New Albany, 3,400 to 2,500; Noblesville, 1,800 to 1,900; North Machester, 1.600 to 1,500; Notre Dame, 1.700 to 1,800; Oakland City, 1,100 to 1,300; Petersburg, 1.300 to 1,400; Plymouth, 1,700 to 1,800; Portland, 1,800 to 1,7C0; Princeton, 1,700 to 1,800; Rqchester, 1,600 to 1,700; Tell City, 1,000 to 1,100; Union City, 1,800 to 1,900: Vevay, 1,100 to 1,200; Wabash, 3,100 to 3,300; Warsaw, 1,800 to 3,000; Albion, 1,000 to 1,100; Alexandria, 1,300 to 1,600; Anderson, 2,500 to 3,600; Angola, 1.500 to 1,600.

THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL Culmination of the Trouble Over Prof, Tompkins’ Kemoval, A sensational climax in the Indiana State Normal controversy at Terre, Haute between the board of trustees and the (acuity on one side and the 1,000 students sustaining Prof. Tompkins, the deposed processor, on the other, was reached, Thur.--day, and there was much excitement as a result. At 4:00 o’clock the full lioard of trustees who went to attend the commencement exercises, Friday, submitted a statement in the nature of an ultimatum to the entire graduating class of sixty-nine students, demanding that they return it signed before 6 o’clock, disavowing both individually and collectively the recent attacks on the trustees and faculty in thy. matter of Prof. Tompkins’ removal. The entire class of men and women refused to sign the statement, and at once packed up their books and effects and left the building. not one of them remaining. The students who sympathize with the graduates did the same thing, and soon the building was emptied of all except the trustees and President Parsons. The greatest excitement prevailed. Many graduates anck students crowded to the railroad offices, purchased tickets and left >for their homes in various parts of the State on the first train. Eighty-four counties of Indiana are represented in the ichool. President Parsons declined to give jut the ultimatum sent to the graduating ‘lass. Gov. Matthews arrived on Friday Hid tried to pacify the students, but was lot successful. The commencement exerrises. were declared off, and the names of .hose who were'to graduate were stricken from the rolls. The feeling among the itudents.against President Parsons is inicnse.

A HOOSIER HERR. Col. Ijtwton, of Fort Wayne, Presented With a Medal. Secretary Lament,on last Saturday, pre sented a modal of honor to H. W. Lawton of Ft. Wayne, late Captain and Lieuten-ant-Colonel of the Thirtieth Indiana Volunteers, and now Lieutenant-Colonel and (Inspector-General United States Army, ‘for distinguished gallantry in the battli at Atlanta, Ga., August 3, 18(54.” Tin circumstances for which he Is thus publicly commended occurred during the Atlanta campaign and in front of Atlanta Ga., when Captain Lawton, of the Thirtieth Indiana Volunteers, commanded bj Col. O. D. Hurd, greatly distinguished himself by the exhibition of unusual courage and good judgment. Daring thi? carapalgn the Thirtieth Indiana'served in the Third brigade, First division. Fourth army corps, and on the 3rd of August,1864, Captain Lawton was brigade officer of the day. On the afternoon of that day the skirmish lino was reinforced and an advance was ordered along the whole line nearly three-fourths of a mile, for the purpose of dislodging thecnemy from their rifle pits. The] movement was concerted with the other two brigades of the, division, the third being in the center. Capt. Lawton was in command of this line of. and conducted and led its advance. In the language of Colonel Hurd, “the success of this assault was duo mainly to the intelligent dispositions made by Captain Lawton and to his personal courage and stubborn resistance made to the enemy’s repeated charges.” Col. Lawton was born in Ohio, but entered the army from Indiana, first as a surgeon in .the Ninth Regiment, afterwards serving as a lieutenant in the Thirtieth and gradually rising to the rank of colonel. Ho entered the regular army in 1866 as a lieutenant and has been gradually promoted, being made a lieutenant-colo-nel in 18S9, and subsequently being made a colonel and detailed for duty at the War Department as Inspector-General. After listening to an address by Prof: Walter Sims, two thousand citizens of Duluth resolved that the presence of Mgr. Satoli in this country was a menace to 'their liberties. Fulton conntv will have a new jail.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. Germany has an rerial navigation society. One pound a day is the amount of bread allowed an English soldier. There are 8,838 medical studentat the various universities in Ger many. It is estimated that are 3,000 more paupers in London than there was this time a year ago. It is said that’ the “thirteen” superstition extends way back to the time of King Arthur, 516 A. D. There have been twenty-seven cases of insanity in the Bavarian royal family during the last hundred years. The largest locomotives in the world are the American monsters, running mainly on the fast Western trains. The imperial canal of China is the longest in the world and greatest in point of traffic. Its length is 2,100 miles and it connects with fifty-one cities situated on its. banks. It was completed in 1350, after 600 years spent on its construction. The “whirling fever” has entered a family of seven persons in Lawrence, Kan. Father and mother and five children have jeeu supplied with bicycles and are out most every evenin a group, riding around town on their wheels. In the United States there are 1,500,000 more males than females. In the District of Columbia the females exceed the males in the ratio of 110 to 100. In Louisiana the sexes are closely balanced—559,350 males and 559,237 females. The inhabitants of the MalmyshJ< district, in the government of Vyatka, in Russia, are still hopeless pagans, and quite recently offered up a human sacrifice to their gods. They are the onlj people- whose religion is paganism remaining in any part of Europe. An artesian well has been struck at Pierre. S. D., that has a flow of 400 gallons per minute and is highly magnetic. The gas which also accompanies the flow makes it worthless for fire protection, as the gas will blase if a light is applied to the water.

A prize parrot was recently bought by the Archduchess Stephanie, of Austria, for $400. An evidence of its ability as a linguist was given when she heard it repeat the Lord’s Prayer in six different languages. The man of whom she bought it was a ventriloquist, who had taught the bird to open its mouth while he did the talking. A man named Schneider deserted his wife in Thessingen, Bavaria, came to America, and here commit ted bigamy. Learning some years later that his first wife had died, he returned to his old home and is in jail there. The report of his wife’s death was merely a ruse to get him in the clutches of the law. In the July Century George Kennan will reply to the article in defense of the Russian government recently published by the secretary of the Russian Legation. An article will also be contributed by Joseph Jacoby secretary o! the Russo-Jewish Committee in London, on the attitude of the Russian government to the Jews frqrn the standpoint of the latter. A young man in Scott county, Ky., felt a severe pain in his left shoulder and arm two years ago, and for months he suffered intensely. Then the affected parts began to change color and became dark brown and the pain decreased. At last the shoulder and arm were covered with a thick growth of soft, brown hair an inch long, the pain ceased entirely, and now the young man is twice as strong in his left arm as he •is in his right.

The last letter written by George Washington has recently been sold at auction in Philadelphia for 1850. It was offered for sale by Arthur Appeltofft, formerly of the revenue steamer Crawford,for a Swedish lady to whom it had descended, after many vicissitudes, from Capt. John Scholl. It was given to the latter by the recipent, James Anderson, of Norfolk, Va., in 1800. The letter is dated December 13, 1799, the day before Washington’s death, and relates to business connected with the farms near Mount Vernon, and to the construction or repair of cattle pens. California’s famous glacier scientist and mountain climber has gone to Europe to explore ihe glaciers of Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. In his tours in the Sierras and Alaska he as a rule goes alone. In the Sierras he carries three weeks’ provisions and no gun. He carries no ''ankets in these mountains,* but keeps his fire burning all night, rising frequently to replenish it. All his dangerous work in the Alaska glaciers he has done alone. In 1890 lie spent eleven nights on the Muir glacier, sleeping on a sled in a bearskin bag