Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1893 — HARP AND JAVELIN. [ARTICLE]

HARP AND JAVELIN.

The Mayor of Abilene, Kas., receives the munificent salary of $1 per annum and is said to earn the money. A Kansas Judge has rendered a decision in which he holds that the laws of that State are paramount to Federal authority. Kansas is a great State. An Indianapolis restaurant-keeper became greatly excited over the Liberty Bell demonstration, and inscribed on his street blackboard bill-of-fare the following legend “Liberty or Death! Roast Beef! Pork Chops! Biggest Lunch in Town lor 10 cents." j • 'f Earl Granville, whose younger son has recently been appointed lord in waiting to Queen Victoria, was slightly deaf, and was in the habit of turning his infirmity to a very, practical use. Whenever an unacceptable request was made of him he would insist on its repetition a number of times, and then say: “No use; so sorry; my unfortunate hearing; some other time when there is less noise." The crop reports from several European countries indicate that bad weather is prevailing to an alarming extent and that a serious shortage in all staples is threatened. Providence may thus interfere in our behalf and the constant drainage of gold to Europeamnoney centers may be checked in time to avert the serious consequences which financiers have been anticipating should present conditions continue. Ex-Senator Ingalls, in an artiule in the New York World, announoes that Chicago is an “awfully" wicked city, and that the closing of the gates of the Exposition on Sunday means only an increased indulgence in all forms of vice and dissipation. At the same time he assures the general public that a peaceable and well-disposed person will be perfeetly safe in visiting the modorn Sodom, and that if all will keep away from the easily-avoided haunts of wickedness no trouble need be anticipated. ’The Associated Press employs some first-class romancers, and these brilliant literary geniuses occasionally endeavor to earn their salaries by inventing highly sensational articles which they telegraph over the country as nows. One of their latest” efforts in this direction was the story about the 200 Zulus, en route to the World’s Fair, capturing a train and imprisoned the train crew in the bag- I gage car. It was very thrilling and was generally published and believed. Now comes the Chicago Record and demolishes the whole fabricated lie by stating that there are just three live Zulus at the Fair.

Rev. Sam Small, though nominally a journalist, still does odd jobs of evangelistic work as occasion may offer. Recently he conducted a series of meetings at Griffin, Ga., and in the course of his remarks indulged in some very severe reflections upon the characters of young ladies who were habitual dancers and members of the “German" club of that place. The club thereupon appointed a committee of four to wait on the evangelist and demand a retraction and apology. After some diplomatic parley Mr. Small promised to make ample amends for his ungentlemanly remarks, which he claimed were made upon information that he had reason to believe was reliable. The Pennsylvania young woman who set out to collect 1,000,000 cancelled stamps three years ago, believing that she could find a purchaser for them at SSOO, has finished the work of collection but can not find a market for her unique merchandise. The task of collecting this vast number of useless bits of paper has not boon easy and all manner of devices were resorted to before the required number were obtained. Now that the reward to which the young woman had so long looked forward fails to materialize, the revulsion of feeling has unsettled her reason and it is feared that she will become permanently insane. The young Earl of Craven and his parvenu New York bride traveled to Chicago for the World’s Pair opening,arriving several days in advance with baggage aud a retinue sufficient for the largest opera company on the road. He was astonished to find that he was not “in it" at all, and tliat the great busy city had no time to waste ors English «dudcs no matter what their pedigree.

The long-continued adulation of the swells of New York had somewhat turned the young man’s head, and given him erroneous ideas of Amer ican character, and it is gratifying to know that his pride was brought down by an encounter with the highTest "type of Western independence. Jenkins kept track of President Cleveland’s movements to the minutest detail on the Sunday Grover spent in Chicago previous to the opening day of the World’s Fair, and informed an anxious world through the medium of the Associated Press that the President aro'se at 8 o’clock and partook of breakfast, which consisted of a small tenderloin steak and eggs, but he failed to state whether the great man took horseradish with his eggs or swallowed them straight. This was a great oversight on the part of Jenkins, and much apprehension was felt throughout the country over the matter. There is nothing like accuracy when dealing with affairs of such great (?) importance.

The Yankee swindler is very bright, and the American “con” men are believed to be especially “smooth,” but our best talent in this line would be sadly put out to invent a game more original or successful than an apparently stolid German porter worked in a Prussian town the other day. Staggering along the street under a heavy burden, he fell against a plate glass window of a store, crushing through and mining it. The proprietor demanded payment. The porter said he had no money, but he was searched and a thousand mark note found on his person, w r hich he protested belonged to his employer. Nevertheless the storekeeper retained one hundred marks to make good his loss and returned nine hundred to the stolid bearer of burdens, who went away in great auger swearing and vo wing vengeance for what he termed a shameless robbery. Shortly after the storekeeper discovered that the thousand mark note was counterfeit and took his turn at swearing. TnE escape of two condemned murderers, under sentence of death, from the Sing Sing. N. Y., penitentiary, a few days since, continues to excite unusual comment, although the prison officials have given up all hope of capturing the criminals and abandoned the pursuit. Much has been written concerning the inefficiency of the gnards who were foundjlocked in the escaped prisoners’ cells, but there is a suspicion that these men have been made the scapegoats for officials higher up in the scale of political preferment. In New York, if the metropolitan journals are-to-be believed, there is a deep-seated conviction that somebody has been paid -to wink at the whole transaction It is in evidence that the escaped prisoners traversed the whole length of an extensive prison yard, after leaving the cell house, and finally quitted the place without once being molested in their progress. Nobody saw them, or apparently wanted to see them, and the entire prison could have easily been emptied had the prisoners saw fit to avail themselves of the opportunity offered. An official inquiry is urgently demanded, but is not at all likely to be instituted.

William Waldorf Astor, who recently purchased the ancestral estate of the Duke of Westminster in England, known as “Cliveden,” has abandoned his American citizenship and renounced the land of his birth. He essays to be a molder. of public opinion in English society, and will spend some of his millions in literary ventures. He also has an ambij tion to be known as a landed proprie tor and a member of the British aristocracy. The nobility of that country do not in many cases take kindly to the aspiring American, and broadly hint that lie is a parvenu, and that vast wealth does not compensate for lack of high birth and a long line of distinguished ancestors. Such an episode is not creditable to the good judgment of a man who owes everything to America, whose family have acquired untold wealth by reason of the advantages here offered, who has been highly honored by the Government of the United States, and who by every rule of right Or honor was bound to cast his lot and expend his fortune in the land to which he owed so tnany obligations. Patriotic Americans will read with satisfaction the accounts of the various “snubbings” that Mr. Astor may from this time on receive from j that aristocracy to which he aspires by reason of his dollars gained on American soil. A Sad Disappointment. Mr. Murry Hill—My wife is in awful bad humor to-day. Mr. Madison Square—What is the with her? Mr. Murry Hill—You see she started out to match some ribbons, and she found what she wanted in the very first store she struck.

A Vivid and Entertaining Word Picture. Saul and David— Peril* to be Avoided—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. Dr..Talmage-preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject: “Harp and Javelin.” Text: I Samuel, 18, 10-11 —“And David played with his hand as at other times, and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand. And Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.” What a spectacle for all ages! Saul, a giant, and David, a dwaif. An unfortunate war ballad had ,been composed and sung eulogizing David above Saul. That song threw Saul into a paroxysm of rage which brought on one of his old spells of insanity to which he had been subject. If one is disposed to some, physical ailment and he gets real mad it is very apt to bring on one of his

old attacks. Saul is a raving maniac, and he goes to imitating the false prophets or sibyls, who kicked and gesticulated wildly when they pretended to be foretelling events. Whatever the physicians of the royal staff may have prescribed for the disordered king I know not, but David prescribed music. Having keyed up the harp, his fingers began to pull the rhythm from the bibrating strings. Thrum!Thrum! Thrum! No use. The king will not listen to the exquisite cadences. He lets fly a javelin, expecting to pin the minstrel to the wall, but David dodged the weapon and kept on, for he was confident that he could, as before, -j subdue Saul’s bad spirit by music. Again the javelin is flung, and Dadodges it and departs. What a contrast! Roseate David with a harp and enraged Saul with a javelin. Who would not rather play the one than fling the other? But that was not the only time in the world’s history that harp and javelin met. Where their birthplace was I cannot declare. It is said that the lyre was first suggested by the tight drawing of the sinews of a tortoise across its shell, and that the flute was first suggested by tlie blowing of the wind across a bed of reeds, and that the ratio of musical intervals was first suggested to Pythagoras by the different hammers on the anvil of the smithy, but the harp seems to me to have dropped out of the sky and the javelin to have been thrown up from the'pit. The oldest stringed instrument of the world is the harp. Jubal sounded his harp in the book of Genesis. David played many of his psalms on the harp while he sang them. The captives in Babylon hung their harps on the willows. Joshephus celebrated the invention of the 10-stringed harp. Timotheus the Milesian was imprisoned for adding the twelfth string to the harp, because too much luxury of sound might enervate the people. Egyptian harps, Scottish harps, Welsh harps, Irish harps have been celebrated. What an inspired ■ArifUiglal - :: r Everlasting honors to Sebastian Erard, who by pedals invented called the foot as well as the hand to the harp. When the harpiscord maker for whom he worked discharged hhn j for his genins, the employer not wanting to be eclipsed by his subordinate, Erard suffered from the same passion of jealousy that threw Saul of my text into the fit during which, he flung a javelin at the harpist. The harp is almost human, as you find when you put your finger on its pulse. Other instruments have louder voice and may be better for a battle charge, but what exquisite sweetness slumbers between the harp strings, waking at the first touch of the tips

c J. of the fingers. It can weep. It can plead. It can sooth. It can pray. .The flute is more mellow, the trumpet is more startling, the organ is more majestic, the cymbals are more festive, the drum is more resounding, but the harp has a richness of its own and will continue its mission through all time and then take part in celestial symphonies, for St. John says he heard in heaven the harps of God. But the javelin of my text is just as old. It is about 51 feet long, with wooden handle and steel point, keen and sharp. But it belongs to the great family of death dealers and is brother to sword and spear and bayonet, and first cousin to all the implements that wound and slay. It has cut its way through the ages. It was old when Saul, in tjie scene of my next text, tried to harpoon David. It has gashed the earth with grave trenches. Its keen tip is reddened with the blood of American wars, English wars, German wars, Russian wars, French wars,Crusader wars and wars of all nations and of all ages. Oh, I am so glad that my text brings them so close together that we can see the contrast between the harp and the javelin. Tho one to sooth, the other to hurt; the one to save, the other to destroy; the one divine, the other diabolic; the one to play/the other to hurl; the one in David’s skillful hand, the other in Saul’s wrathfnl clutch. May God speed the harp; may God grind into dullness the sharp edge of the javelin. After the battle ofi Yorktown, when a musician was to suffer amputation, and before the days of anaesthetics, the wounded artist called for a musical instrument and Ibst not a note during the forty minutes of the operation. Filippo Galina, the great musician, confronted by an angry creditor, played so enchautingly before him that tho creditor forgave the debt and gave the debt-

or ten guineas more to appease other creditors. Ah eminent physician of olden time contended (of course carrying our theory too far) that all ail-, meats of the world could be cured by music. The medical journals never report their recoveries by this, method. But in what twilight hour has many a saint of God solaced a heartache with a hymn hnmmed or s ung or p! aved 1 Jerome of Prague Sang while burning at the stake. But when in ihy text I see Saul declining this medicine of rhythm and cadence and actually hurling a javelin at the heart of David, the harpist, I bethink myself of the fact t.hat sin would like to kill "sacred music, We are not told what tune David was playing on the harp that day, but from the character.of the man we know it was not a crazy madrigal, or a senseless ditty, or a sweep of strings suggestive of the melodrama, but elevated music, God-given music, inspired music, religious music, a whole heaven of it encamped under a harp string. t No wonder that wicked Saul hated it and could not abide the sound and with all his might hurled an instrument of death at it. ..

See also in my subject a rejected opportunity of revenge. Why did not David pick up Saul’s javelin and hurt it back • again? David had a skillful arm. He demonstrated on another occasion he could wield a sling, and he could easily have picked, up that javelin, aimed it at Saul, the would-be assassin, and left the foaming and demented monster as lifeless under the javelin as he had left Goliath under a sling. Oh, David, now is your chance. No, no. Men and women with power of tongue or pen or hand to reply to -an embittered antagonist, better imitate David. Better imitate David and let the javelin lie at your feet and keep the harp in your hand. Do not strike back. Do not play the game of tit for tat. See also in my subject the unreasonable attitude of javelin toward harp. What had that harp in David’s hand done to the javelin in Saul’s hand? Had the vibrating strings of the one hurt the keen edge of the other? Was there an old grudge between the two families of sweet sound and sharp cut? Had the triangle ever insulted the polished shatt? Why the deadly aim of the destroying weapon against the instrument of soothing, calming, healing sound? Well, I will answer that if you will tell me why the hostility of so many to the gospel, why the virulent attacks against Christian religion, why the angry antipathy of so many to the most genial, most inviting, most salutary influence under all the heavens? Javelin of wit, javelin of irony,! javelin of scurrility, javelin of so- j phistry, javelin of human and diabolic hostility, have been flying for hundreds of years and are flying now. But aimed at what? At something that has come to devastate the world? At something that slays nations? At something that would maul and trample under foot and excruciate and crush the human race? No, aimed at the gospel harp—harp on which prophets played with somewhat lingering and uncertain fingers, but harp on which apostles played with sublime certainty, and martyrs played while their fingers were on fire. Harp that was dripping - with the of Christ out of whoso heartstrings the harp was ehorded and from whose dying groan the strings were keyed. Oh, gospel harp! All thy nerves a-tremble with stories of self sacrifice. Harp thrummed by fingers long ago turned to dust. Harp that made heaven listen and will 3 r et make all the earth hear. Harp that sounded pardon to my sinful soul and pface over the grave where my dead sleep. Harp that will lead the chant of the blood

washed throng redeemed around the throne. Maya javelin slay mo before I flinga'javelin at that. Harp which it seems almost too sacred for me to touch, and so I call down from their thrones those who used to finger it and ask them to touch* it now. Ineffable harp! Transporting harp! Harp of earth! Harp of neaven! Harp saintly and serapnic! Harp of God! Oh, I like the idea of the old monument in the ancient church at Ullard, near Kilkenny, Ireland. Tho sculpture on that monument, though chiseled more than 1,000 years ago. as appropriate to-day as then, tho sculpture representing a harp upon a c oss. That is where I hang it now; that is where you had better hang it. Let the javelin be forever buried, the sharp edge down, but hang the harp upon the cross. And now upon our souls let tho harps of heaven rain music, and as when the sun’s rays fall aslant in Switzerland at jthe approach of eventide, and the shepherd among the Alps puts the horn to his lips and blows a blast, and says, “Glory be to God,” and all the shepherds on the Alpine heights or down in the deep valleys respond with other blast of horns, saying, “Glory be to God.” and then all the shepherds uncover their heads and kneel in worship, and after a few moments of silence some shepherd rises from his knees and blows another blast of the horn and says, “Thanks be to God," and all through the mountains the response comes from other shepherds, “Thanks be to God,” so this moment let all the valleys of earth respond to the hills of heaven with sounds of glory and thanks, and it be he.rp of earthly worship to harp of heavenly worship, and the words of St. John in the Apocalypse bo fulfilled, “I heard a voioe from heaven as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder, and I heard the voioe of harpers harping with their harps.”