008. Organ Dedication

Organ Dedication

Gen_4:21 : ’93His brother’92s name was Jubal; he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.’94

Lamech had two boys, the one a herdsman and the other a musician. Jubal the younger son was the first organ-builder. He started the first sound 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, and George Hogarth and Joseph Booth and Thomas Robjohn, clear on down to George and Edward Jardine of our day. I do not wonder that, when the first full organ that we read of as given in 757 by an emperor of the east to a king of France, sounded forth its full grandeur, a woman fell into a delirium from which reason was never restored. The majesty of a great organ skilfully 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 Almighty God our organ was not more than half done. It has 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 hosannas! Its history is peculiar. The late Mr. George Jardine recently made a tour of the organs of Europe. He gathered up in his portfolio an account of all the excellences of the renowned instruments of music on the other side of the Atlantic, and all the new improvements, and brought back that portfolio to America, declaring that Brooklyn Tabernacle should have the full advantage of all he had obtained, and although he did not live to carry out his idea, his son, Mr. Edward Jardine has introduced into this great organ all those improvements and grandeurs; so while you hear this organ you hear all that is notable in the organs of Lucerne and Fribourg and Haarlem and St. Paul and Westminster Abbey and other great organs that have enraptured the world. In it are banked up more harmonies than I can describe, and all foe God and the lifting of the soul toward him. Its four banks of keys, its one hundred and ten stops and appliances, its four thousand five hundred and ten pipes, its chime of thirty-seven bells, its cathedral diapason, and pedal double diapason, its song trumpet, and night horn, and vox humana, all, all, we dedicate to God and the soul. 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 dedicate 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 sons 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’92s stringed and wind instruments. Silence itself’97perfect silence’97is only a musical rest in God’92s great anthem of worship. Wind among the leaves, insects humming in the summer air, the rush of billow upon beach, the ocean far out sounding its everlasting psalm, the bobolink on the edge of the forest, the quail whistling up from the grass, are music.

On Blackwell’92s Island, I 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 ears, if we only had acuteness enough to listen. I suppose that even the sounds in nature that are discordant and repulsive make harmony in God’92s ear. You know that you may come so near an orchestra that the sounds are painful, instead of pleasurable, and I think we stand so near devastating storm and frightful whirlwind, we cannot hear that which makes to God’92s ear and the ears 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 a boisterous piece of music. The musician sometimes breaks down the instrument on which he plays; so it may be on that Last Day that the March of God, played by the fingers of thunders and earthquakes and conflagrations, may break down the world upon which the music is executed. Not only is inanimate nature full of music, but God has so wonderfully organized the human voice, that in the plainest throat and lungs there are fourteen direct muscles which can make over sixteen thousand sounds, and there are thirty indirect muscles; it can make in all, it has been estimated, more than one hundred and seventy million different sounds. Now I say, when God has constructed the human voice and when he has filled the whole earth with harmony, and when he recognized it in 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 use, 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: ’93Sing ye to God, all ye kingdoms of the earth.’94 And there are scores of other passages I might name, proving that it is as much a man’92s duty to sing as it is his duty to pray. Indeed, I think there are more commands in the Bible to sing than there are to pray. God not only asks for the human voice but for instruments of music. He asks for the cymbal, and the harp, and the trumpet as well as the organ. And I suppose that, in the 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 righteousness, or sin, will be brought by their masters and laid down at the feet of Christ, and then sounded in the church’92s triumph, on her way from suffering unto glory. ’93Praise ye the Lord!’94 Praise him with your voices. Praise him with stringed instruments and with organs.

I draw another argument for the importance of this exercise from its impressiveness. You know something of what secular music has achieved. You know it has made its impression upon governments, upon laws, upon literature, upon whole generations. One inspiring national air is worth thirty thousand 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, no church can afford to severely economize in music. Many of you are yourselves illustrations of what sacred 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 an armed castle, that could not be taken by a host, lifts its window to listen to a harp’92s trill. There was a Scotch soldier dying in New Orleans, and a Scotch minister came in to give him the consolations of the Gospel. The man turned over on his pillow, and said: ’93Don’92t talk to me about religion.’94 Then the Scotch minister began to sing a familiar hymn of Scotland, that was composed by David Dickinson, beginning with the words:

Oh, Mother, dear Jerusalem,

When shall I come to thee?

He sang it to the tune of ’93Dundee,’94 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: ’93Where did you learn that?’94 ’93Why,’94 replied the minister, ’93my mother taught me that.’94 ’93So did mine,’94 said the dying Scotch soldier; and the very foundation of his heart was upturned, and then and there he yielded himself to Christ. Oh, it has an irresistible power. Luther’92s sermons have been forgotten, but his ’93Judgment Hymn’94 sings on through the ages, and will keep on singing until the blast of the archangel’92s trumpet shall introduce that very day which the hymn celebrates. I would to God that those who hear me would take these songs of salvation as messages from heaven; for just as certainly as the birds brought food to Elijah by the brook Cherith, so these winged harmonies, Godsent, are flying to your soul with the bread of life. Open your mouths and take it, oh, hungry Elijahs!

In addition to the inspiring music of our own day we have a glorious inheritance of church psalmody which has come down fragrant with the devotions of other generations’97tunes no more worn out than they were when our great-grandfathers climbed up on them from the church pew to glory? Dear old souls, how they used to sing! When they were cheerful, our grandfathers and grandmothers used to sing ’93Colchester.’94 When they were very meditative, then the board meeting-house rang with ’93South Street’94 and ’93St. Edmond’92s.’94 Were they struck through with great tenderness, they sang ’93Woodstock.’94 Were they wrapped in visions of the glory of the church, they sang ’93Zion.’94 Were they overborne with the love and glory of Christ, they sang ’93Ariel.’94 And in those days there were certain tunes married to certain hymns, and they have lived in peace a great while, these two old people, and we have no right to divorce them. ’93What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’94 But how hard-hearted we must be if all this sacred music of the past, and all the sacred music of the present does not start us heavenward.

I have also noticed the power of sacred song to soothe perturbation. You may have come to God’92s house with a great many worriments and anxieties, yet, perhaps, in the singing of the first hymn, you lost all those worriments and anxieties. You have read in the Bible of Saul and how he was sad and angry, and how the boy David came in and played the evil spirit out of him. A Spanish king was melancholy. The windows were all closed. He sat in the darkness. Nothing could bring him forth until Faraneli came and discoursed music for three or four days to him. On the fourth day he looked up, and wept, and rejoiced, and the windows were thrown open, and that which all the splendors of the court could not do, the power of song accomplished If you have anxieties and worriments, try this heavenly charm upon them. Do not sit down on the bank of the hymn, but plunge in, that the devil of care may be brought out of you.

It also arouses to action. A singing church is always a triumphant church! If a congregation is silent during the exercise, or partially silent, it is the silence of death. If, when the hymn is given out, you hear the faint hum of here and there a father and mother in Israel, while the vast majority are silent, that minister of Christ who is presiding needs to have a very strong constitution if he does not get the chills. He needs not only the grace of God, but nerves like whalebone. It is amazing how some people, who have voice enough to discharge all their duties in the world, when they come into the house of God have no voice to discharge this duty. I really believe, if the church of Christ could rise up and sing as it ought to sing, that where we have a hundred souls brought into the kingdom of Christ, there would be a thousand.

But I must now speak of some of the obstacles in the way of the advancement of this sacred music; and the first is that it has been impressed into the service of superstition. I am 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’92s. 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.

Another obstacle has been 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 inaccuracies that are evident when only a few sing would not be heard at all; they would be drowned out. God only asks 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’97the 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 contrite, broken heart, although it may not be able to stand human criticism, makes better music to God’92s ear than the most artistic performance when the heart is wanting. I know it is easier to preach on this than it is to practice; but I sing for two reasons’97first, 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 dragons to praise him, and we ought not to be behind the cattle and the dragons.

Another obstacle that has been in the way of advancement of this holy art, has been the fact that there has been so much angry discussion on the subject of music. There are those who would have this exercise conducted by musical instruments. In the same church, there are those who do not like musical instruments, and so it is organ and no organ, and there is a fight. In another church, it is a question whether the music shall be conducted by a precentor or by a drilled choir. Some want a drilled choir and some want a precentor, and there is a fight. Then there are those who would like in the church to have the organ played in a dull, lifeless, droning way, while there are others who would have it wreathed into fantastics, branching out in jets and spangles of sound, rolling and tossing in marvelous convolutions, as when, in pyrotechnic display, after you think a piece is exhausted, it breaks out in wheels, rockets, blue-lights, and serpentine demonstrations. Some would have the organ played in almost inaudible sweetness, and others would have it full of staccato passages that make the audience jump, with great eyes, and hair on end, as though by a vision of the Witch of Endor. And he who tries to please all will fail in everything. Nevertheless, you are to admit the fact that this contest which is going on in hundreds of the churches of the United States today, is a mighty hindrance to the advancement of this art. In this way scores and scores of churches are entirely crippled as to all influence, and the music is a damage rather than a praise.

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: ’93Oh, what an easy time we shall have: the minister will do the preaching, the choir will do the singing, and we will have nothing to do.’94 And you know as well as I that there are a great many churches all through this land, where the people are not expected to sing, the whole work is done by delegation of four, or six, or ten persons, and the audience is silent. In such a church in Syracuse, New York, 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 many churches, the choir are expected to do all the singing, and the great mass of 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, singing ’93Rock of Ages cleft for me,’94 with the same spirit with which the night before they took their parts in the ’93Grand Duchess’94 or ’93Don Giovanni.’94 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 wood-thrushes 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: ’93Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord;’94 and, keeping time with the stroke of innumerable wings, there would be five thousand 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 singing of the upper temple. Hush now, thrones and dominions and principalities. David! be still, though you were ’93the sweet singer of Israel.’94 Paul! keep quiet, though you have come to that crown of rejoicing. Richard Baxter! keep still, though this is the ’93Saint’92s everlasting Rest.’94 Four spirits now do all the singing. But how long would heaven be quiet? How long? ’93Hallelujah!’94 would cry some glorified Methodist from under the altar. ’93Praise the Lord!’94 would sing the martyrs from among the thrones. ’93Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory!’94 a great multitude of the redeemed spirits would cry, myriads of voices coming into the harmony and the one hundred and forty-four thousand breaking forth into one acclamation. Stop that loud singing! Stop! No you might as well try to drown the thunders of the skies or beat back the roar of the sea; for every soul in heaven has resolved to do his own singing. Alas! that we should have tried on earth that which they cannot do in heaven, and, instead of joining 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.

Now, in this church, we have resolved upon the plan of conducting the music by organ and cornet. We do it for two reasons: one is that by throwing the whole responsibility upon the mass of the people, making the great multitude the choir, we might rouse more heartiness. The congregation coming on the Sabbath day feel that they cannot delegate this part of the great service to any one else, and so they themselves assume it. We have had a glorious congregational singing here. People have come many miles to hear it. They are not sure about the preaching but they can always depend on the singing. We have heard the sound coming up like ’93the voice of many waters,’94 but it will be done at a better rate after a while when we shall realize the height, and the depth, and the immensity of this privilege.

I forgot to state the other reason why we adopted this plan. That is, we do not want any choir quarrels. You know very well that in scores of churches, there has been perpetual contention in that direction. The only church fight that ever occurred under my ministry was over a melodeon, in my first settlement.

Have you never been in church on the Sabbath day and heard the choir sing, and you said, ’93That is splendid music’94? The next Sabbath you were in that church and there was no choir at all. Why? The leader was mad or his assistants were mad, or they were all mad together. Some of the choirs are made up of our best Christian people. Some of the warmest friends I have ever had have stood up in them, Sabbath after Sabbath, conscientiously and successfully leading the praises of God. But the majority of the choirs throughout the land are not made up of Christian people, and three-fourths of the church fights originate in the organ loft. I take that back and say nine-tenths. Many of our churches are dying of choirs.

We want to rouse all our families to the duty of sacred song. We want each family of our congregation to be a singing-school. Childish petulance, 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 praises 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 in 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 God. Never can we have our church sing as it ought, until families sing as they ought. There will be a great revolution on this subject in all our churches. God will come down by his Spirit and rouse up all 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 break forth into music, and when the conductor takes his place on the Sabbath day, there will be a great host of voices rushing into harmony. If we have no taste for this on earth what will we do in heaven, where they all sing and sing forever? I want to rouse you to a unanimity in Christian song that has never yet been exhibited. Come, now! clear your throats and get ready for this duty, or you will never hear the end of this.

I never shall forget hearing a Frenchman sing the ’93Marseillaise’94 on the Champs Elysees, Paris, just before the battle of Sedan in 1870. I never saw such enthusiasm before or since. As he sang that national air, how the Frenchmen shouted! Have you ever, in an English assemblage, heard the band play ’93God save the Queen’94? If you have, you know something about the enthusiasm of a national air. Now, I tell you that these songs we sing, Sabbath by Sabbath, are the national airs of Jesus Christ and of the kingdom of heaven, and if you do not learn to sing them here, how do you ever expect to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb? I should not be surprised at all, if some of the best anthems of heaven are made up of some of the best songs of earth. May God increase our reverence for Christian psalmody, and keep us from disgracing it by our indifference and frivolty.

When Cromwell’92s army went into battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out the long-metre doxology to the tune of ’93Old Hundred,’94 and that great host, company by company, regiment by regiment, brigade by brigade, joined in the doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him, all creatures here below;

Praise him above, ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

And while they sang they marched, and while they marched they fought, and while they fought they got the victory. O men and women of Jesus Christ, let us go into all our conflicts singing the praises of God, and then, instead of falling back, as we often do, from defeat to defeat, we will be marching on from victory to victory.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage