Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1891 — SACRED SONG. [ARTICLE]

SACRED SONG.

God’s Anthens—Music Is of Heavenly Creation. ''‘lnanimate Nature Is Full of God’s String and Wind Instruments. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the text, Genesis iv, 21. He said: Lamech had two boys, on’e a herds man ahd the other a musician. Jubal, the younger, was the first organ builder. He started the first so —that rolled from the wondrous instrument which has had so much to do with the worship of the ages. But what improvement has been made under the hands of organ builders, such as Bernhard, Sebastian Bach, George Hogarth, Joseph Booth and Thomas Robison, clear on down to George and Edward Jardine, of our own day. I do not wonder that when the first full organ that we read of as given, in 757. by an emperor in the East to a king of France sounded forth its full grandeur a woman fell Into a delirium from which her reason was never restored. The majesty of a great organ skillfully played is almost too much for human endurance, but how much the instrument has done in the reinforcement of divine service it will take all time and all eternity to celebrate. Last April when we dedicated this church to the service of the Almighty God our or-fan-was not moratlmn half done. It as now come so near completion that this morning I preach a sermon dedicatory of this mighty throne of sacred sound. It greets the eye as well as the ear. Behold this mountain of anthems! This forest of Hosannahs, It will, I believe, under the divine blessing, lead uncounted thousands into the kingdom. Its wedding marches, its thanksgiving anthems, its requiems will sound after all the voices that follow it today shall have sung their last song. To God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost we deidcate it. There has been much discussion as to where music was born. I think that at the beginning, when the morning stars sang together and all the suns of God shouted for joy, that the earth heard the echo. The cloud on which the angels stood to celebrate the creation was the birthplace of song. Inanimate nature is full of God’s stringed and wind instruments. Silence itself—perfect silence—is only a musical rest in God’s great anthem of worship. Wind among the leaves, insects humming in the summer air, the rush of billow upon beach, the ocean far outsounding its everlasting psalm, the bobolink on the edge of the forest, : the quail whistling up from the ■grass,are music. On Blackwell’s island 1 heard, coming from a window of the lunatic asylum, a very sweet song. It was sung by one who had lost her reason, and I have come to believe that even the deranged and disordered elements of nature would make music to our ear if we only had acuteness enough to listen. I suppose that even the sounds, of nature that are discordant and repulsive make harmony in God’s ear. You know that you may come so near to an orchestra that the sounds are painful instead of pleasurable, > and I think we stand so near devastating storm and frightful whirlwind that we cannot hear that which makes to God’s ear and the ear of the spirits above us a music as complete as it is tremendous. The day of judgment, which will be a day of uproar and tumult. I suppose, will bring no dissonance to the ears of those Who can calmly listen; although it be as when some terous piece of music, he sometimes breaks = downthe instrument oh’ which he plays, so it may be on that last day that the grand march of God, played by the fingers of thun- * der, and earthquake, and conflagration, may break down the world upon which the music is executed. Not only is inanimate nature full of music, but God has created the human voice so that in the plainest throat and lungs there are fourteen direct muscels. which can make over 15,000 different sounds, and there are thirty indirect muscles which can make, it has been estimated, over 173.000,000 sounds! Now, I say, when God has so constructed the human voice, and when he has filled the whole earth with harmony, and when he recognizes in it the ancient temple, I have a right to come to the conclusion that God loved music. I propose this morning, in setting apart this organ for sacred music, to speak about sacred music: first showing you its importance, and then stating some of the obstacles to its advancement. I draw the first argument for the importance of sacred music from the fact that God commanded it. Through Paul He tells us to admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; and through David He cries out: ‘’Sing ye to God, all ye kingdoms of the earth. ” And there are hundreds of other passages I might name, providing that it is as much a man’s duty to sing as it is to pray. God not only asks for the human Voice but for instruments of music. He asks- for the cymball, and the harp, and the trumpet as well as the organ. And I suppose that, inthe last days of the church, the harp, the lute, the trumpet and all the instruments of music, whether they have been in the service of righteousices or sin, will be-brought by their masters and laid down at the feet of Christ, and then sound in the Church's triumph on her way from suffering to glory. “Praise ye the ■»' * ', t - ■■

Lord!” Praise Him with your voice, praise Him with string instruments and with organs. I draw another argument for the importance Of this exercise, from the impressiveness of this exercise. You know something of what secular music has achieved. You know it has made its impression on governments, upon laws, upon literature, upon whole generations. One inspiring national air is worth 30,000 men as a standing army. There comes a time in the battle when one bugle is worth a thousand muskets. I have to tell you<that no nation or church can afford to severely economize in music. Many of you are illustrations of what sacrted song can do. Through it you were brought into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. You stood out against the argument and the warning of the pulpit; but when in the sweet words of Isaac Watts, or Charles Wesley, or John Newton, or Toplady, the love of Jesus was sung to your soul, then you surrendered, as the armed castle, that could not, be taken by a host, lifts its window to iisten to a harp’s trill. There was a Scotch soldier dying ihNew Orleans,anda Scotdhminisrter came in to give him the.consolations of the Gospel. The man turned over on his pillow and said: "Don’t talk to me about religion.” Then the Scotch minister began to sing a familiar hymn of Scotland, that was composed bv David Dickenson, beginning with the words: “Oh, mother, dear, Jerusalem, when shall I come to thee?” He sang it to the tune of “Dundee, ’’ and-everybody in Scotland knows that; and as he began to sing the dying soldier turned over on his pillow and said to -the minister: “Where did you learn that?” “Why,” replied the minister, “my mother taught me that.” “So did mine,” said the dying Scotch soldier; and the very foundation of his heart was upturned, and then and there he yielded himself to Christ. In addition to the inspiring music of our day we have a glorious inheritance of church psalmody which has come down fragrant with the devotions of other generations—tunes no more worn out than they were when our great-grandfathers climbed up on them from the church pew to glory! But I must now speak of some obstacles in the way of advancement of this sacred music; and the first is that it has been impressed into the service of superstition. lam far from believing that music ought always to be positively religious. Refined art has opened places where, music has been secularized, and lawfully so. The drawing room, the musical club, the orchestra the concert, by the gratification of pure taste, and the production of harmless amusement and the improvement of talent, have become great forces in the advancement of our civilization. Music has as much right to laugh in Surrey Gardens as it has to pray in St. Paul. In the kingdom of nature we have the glad fifing of the wind as well as the long meter psalm of the thunder.

But while all this is so, every observer has noticed that this art, which God intended for the improvement of the ear, and the voice, and the head, and the heart, has often been impressed into the service of false religions. False religions have depended more upon the hymning of their congregations than upon the pulpit proclamation of their dogmas. Tartini, the musical composer, dreamed one night that Satan snatched from his hand an instrument and played upon it something very sweet —a dream that has often been fulfilled in our day, the voice and the instruments that ought to have been de voted to Christ, captured from the church and applied to purposes of superstition. Another obstacle has bsen an inordinate fear of criticism. The vast majority of people, singing in church never want anybody else to hear them sing. Everybody is waiting for somebody else to do his duty. If we all sang, then the inacuracies that are evident when only a few sing would not be heard at all; they would be drowned out. God only afeks you to do as well as you can, and then, if you get the wrong pitch, or keep wrong time, He will forgive any deficiency of the ear and imperfection of the voice. Angels will not laugh if you should lose your place in the musical scale, or come in at the close a bar behind. There are three schools of singing, I am told —the German school, the Italian school and the French school of singing. “Now I would like to add a fourth school, and that is the school of Christ. The voice of a contritebroken hearth although it . may not be able to stand human criticism, makes better music to God’s ear than the most artistic performance when the heart is wanting. I know it is easy to preach on this than it is to practice, but I sing for two reasons—first, because I like it, and next, because I want to encourage those who do not know how. I have but very little faculty in that direction, yet I am resolved to sing. God has commanded it, and I dare not be silent. He calls on the beasts, on the cattle, on the dragoons to praise Him, and we ought not to be behind the cattle and dragons. Another obstacle In the advancement of this art has been the erroneous notion that this part of the service could be conducted by delegation. Churches have said: “Oh what an easy time we shall have. This minister will do this preaching, the choir will do the singing and we will have nothing to do." And you know as well as I that there are a great multitude of churches all through thia land where the people are ex

pected to sing; the whole work iff* done by a delegation of four, six or ten persons and the audience is silent. In such a church in Syracuse an old elder persisted in singing, and so the choir appointed a committee to go and ask the ’Squire if he would not stop. You know that in a great multitude of churches the choir is expected to do all the singing and the great mass of the people are expected to be silent, and if you utter your voice you are interfering. There they stand, the four,' with opera-glasses dangling at their sides. “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” with the same spirit that the night before, on the stage, they took their parts in “The Grand Duchess” or “Don Giovanni. ” My Christian friends, have we a right to delegate to others the discharge of this duty which God demands of us? Suppose that four wood-thrushes should propose to do all the singing some bright day when the woods are ringing with bird voices. It is decided that four woodthrushes shall do all the singing of the forest. Let all other voices keep silent. How beautifully the four warble. It is really fine music. But how long will you keep the forest still?

Why, Christ would come into that forest and look up as he looked through the olives, and He would wave His hand and say: “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord;” and, keeping time with the stroke of innumerable wings, there would be 5,000 bird voices leaping into the harmony. Suppose this delegation of musical performers were tried in heaven; suppose that four choice spirits should try to do the s inging of the upper tern pie. Hush, now, thrones and dominions and principalities. David, be still, though you were the “sweet singer of Israel. ”Fault keep quiet, though you have come to that crown of rejoicin g. Richard Baxter! keep still, though this is the “Saints’ Everlasting Rest.” Four spirits how do all the singing. But how long would heaven bp quiet? How long? “Hallelujah!” would cry some glorified Methodist from under the altar. “Praise the Lord,” would sing the martyrs from among the thrones. “Thanks be unto God who givethus the victory!” a great multitude of redeemed spirits would cry. Myriads of voices coming into harmony, and the one hundred and forty and four thousand breaking forth into one acclamation. Stop that loud singing! Stop! Oh, no; they can not he'arme. You might as well try to drown the thunder of the sky, or beat back the roar of the sea. for every soul ir. heaven has resolved to do its own singing. Alas! that we should have tried on earth that which they can not doinheaven,andinsteadofjoining all our voices in the praise of the Most High God, delegating perhaps to unconsecrated men and women this most solemn and most delightful service.

We want to arouse all our families tb the duty of sacred song. We want each family in our congregation to be a singing school. ‘ Childish petulence, obduracy and intractability would be soothed if we had more singing in the household, and then our little ones would be prepared for the great congregation on the Sabbath day, their voices uniting with our voices in the praise of the Lord. After a shower there are scores of streams that come down the mountain side with voices rippling and silvery, pouring into one river and then rolling in united strength to the sea. So, I would have all the families of our church send forth the voice of prayer and praise, pouring it into the great tide of public worship that rolls on and on to empty into the great wide heart of Goa. Never can we have our church sing as it ought to until our families sing as they ought. There will be a great revolution on this subject in all our churches. God will come down in his spirit and arouse up the old hymns and tunes that have not been more than half awake since the time of our grandfathers. The silent pews in the church will breake forth in music, and when the conductor takes his place on the sabbath day, there will be a great host of voices rushing into harmony. My Christian friends, if we have no taste for this service on earth what shall we do in heaven, where they all sing, and sing forever.