To be near unto God - pagina 333

returns an echo to our song of praise that resounds among the spheres. It is no dead, silent creation, stricken with dumbness, but a living creation, that utters speech. And he whose ear is attuned to understand this language of nature, hears the harmonious flow of praise and adoration, which it pours forth in perfect accord with the adoring language of his heart. And between these impulses of the heart, and undulations of sound in the creation, the Scripture has laid a tie in the emotional sphere of the world of sounds, the wealth of music, in life's treasure of sanctified song. And psalm after psalm calls on us not only to hear the voice of the Lord in creation, and with our voice to glorify our God, but also to praise him with organs and stringed instruments (Ps. 150:4), with lute and harp, with high sounding cymbals and joyful noise. Organs and stringed instruments therefore are not secondary, but indispensable factors in worship, a means ordered of God for fuller enjoyment in his praise and adoration; that through the world of music, too, the soul may come closer to God. Grant that ascription of praise in the house

m

of

prayer,

consisting

of

unaccompanied

voices,

can be solemn and impressive, even then this human singing is music, and improves in merit and effect when it is developed and cultivated by art. Joyful noises from throat and harp both are part of the harmony which God has put into the wondrous world about us, and which now by the throat, and now by playing on organ or harp, is raised and set in harmonious action with the world of the heart. And whether we strike metal, or cause strings to vibrate, or by our breath drive 329

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