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THE MISSION OE ART. A POTENT FACTOR IN UPLIFTING THE HUMAN RACE. « Hev.Dr.T.De Witt Taluiuge Preaches on the Influence of•• Pleasant Plc ttireM*'l» the Development of C'hrin tian Character. (Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1899.] Washington, .June 18. -Dr. Talmage shows in this discourse how art may be come one of the mightiest agencies for the delation and salvation of the human race. The text is Isaiah, ii, 12, 10, -The day of tiie Lord of hosts shall lie * * * upon al! pleasant pictures.” Pictures are by some relegated to the realm of the trivial, accidental, ■ senti mental or worldly, but my text shows that (lod scrutinizes pictures, am! wheth er.they are good or bad. whether used for right or wrong purposes, is a matter of divine observation and arraignment. The divine mission of pictures is my subject. That the artist's pencil and the engrav er's knife have sometimes been made sub servient to the kingdom of the bad is frankly admitted. After the ashes and scoria were removed from Herculaneum and Pompeii, the walls of those cities discovered to the explorers a degradation in art which cannot be e’.m-gerated. Sa tan and all his imps have alw ys wanted the tingering of the easel. They would rather have possession of that than the art of printing, for types are not so po tent and quick for evil as pictures. The powers of darkness think they have gain ed a triump] some respectable parlor or public art gallery they can hang a canvas embar rassing to the good, but fascinating to the evil. It is not in a spirit of prudery, but backed up Jay God’s eternal truth, when I say that you have no right to hang in your art fiofyms or your dwelling houses that which would be offensive to good people if the figures pictured were alive in your parlor and the guests of your household. A picture that you have to hang in a somewhat secluded place, or that in a public hall you cannot with a group of friends deliberately stand be fore and discuss ought to have a knife stabbed into it at the top and cut cleat through to the bottom and a stout finger thrust in on the right side, ripping clear through to the left. Pliny the elder lost his life by going near enough to see the inside of Vesuvius, and the farther you can stand off from the burning crater of sin the better. Nev er t last day arc opened shall we know what has been the dire harvest of evil picto rials and unbecoming art galleries. De spoil a mau's imagination, and he becomes a mere carcass. The show windows of English and American cities, in which the low theaters have sometimes hung long lines of brazen auor and actresses in style insulting to all propriety, have made a broad path to death for multi tudes of people. But so have all the other aits been tit times suborned of evil. How has’ music been bedraggled? Is there any place so low down in dissoluteness that into it has not been carried David’s harp and Handel's organ, and Gottschalk's piano, and Ole Bull's violin, and the flute, which, though named after so insignifi cant a thing as the Sicilian eel, which has seven spots on the side, like flute holes, yet for thousands of years has had an exalted mission? Architecture, born in the heart of him who made the worlds, under its arches and across its floors, what bacchanalian revelries have been enacted! It is not against any of these arts that they have been so led into cap tivity! Familiar Bible I’lctnren. What a poor world this would be if it were not for what my text calls “pleas ant pictures!” I refer to your memory and mine when I ask if your knowledge of the Holy Scriptures has not been mightily augmented by the woodcuts or engravings in the old family Bible which father and mother read out of and laid on the table in the old homestead when you were boys and girls. The Bible scenes which we all carry in our minds were not got from the Bible typology, but from the Bible pictures. To prove the truth of itin my own case, the other day I took up the old family Bible which 1 inherited. Sure enough, what I have carried in my mind of .Jacob's ladder was exactly the Bible engravings of Jacob's ladder, and so with Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza, Elisha restoring the Ehunammite's son. the massacre of the innocents, Christ blessing little children, the crucifixion and the last judgment. My idea of all these is that of the old Bible engravings, which I scanned before I could read a word. That is true with nine-tenths of you. If I could swing open the door of your foreheads, I would find that you are walking picture gal leries. The great intelligence abroad about the Bible did not come from the general reading of the book, for the ma jority of the people rend it but little, if they read it at all, but all the sacred scenes have been put before the great masses, and not printer's ink, but the pictorial art, must have the credit of the achievement. First, painter’s pencil for the favored few and then engraver’s plate or woodcut for millions on mil lions! What overwhelming commentary on the Bible, what re-enforcement for patri archs, prophets, apostles and Christ, what distribution of Scriptural knowledge of all nations in the paintings and engravings therefrom of Holman Hunt's "Christ In the Temple,” Paul Veronese’s “Magda len Washing the Feet of Christ,” Rapha el’s “Michael the Archangel,” Albert Durer’s “Dragon of the Apocalypse,” Mi chael Angelo’s “Blague of the Fiery Ser pents,” Tintoretto’s “Flight Into Egypt, Rubens’ “Descent From the Cross,” Leo nardo Da Vinci's “Last Supper,” Claude’s "Queen of Sheba,” Belliui s “Madonna, at Milan; Orcagna’s “Last Judgment” and hundreds of miles of pictures, if they • dramatizing, irradiating Bible truths un til the Scriptures are not today so much on paper as on canvas, not so much in ink as in all the colors of the spectrum. In 1833 forth from Strasburg. Germany, there came a child that was to eclipse in speed and boldness anything and every thing that the world had ever seen since the first color appeared on the sky at the creation, Paul Gustave Dore. At 11 tears of age ire published marvelous litho graphs of his own. Saying nothing of what he did for Milton’s “Paradise Lost.’ emblazoning it on the attention of the World, he takes up the book of books, the monarch of literature, the Bible, and in Ills pictures, “’J he Creation of Right.” "The Trial of Abraham’s Faith,” “The burial <>f .Sarah." “Joseph Sold by His Brethren.” “The Brazen Serpent.” “B <az ami Ruth." “David and Goliath,File *1'..,,,. .ii..... »• 44’i't. . 11l it ( ’•■»- 41 XIA -»•<* «U 4. i ibl i! .. I’.dl. ti’ .ni(| 203 --<TH.ir.-id x< eiH's in all. with a boldness and fl grasp r-ml almost supernatural afflatus that make the heart throb and the brain reel and the tears start and the cheeks blanch and the eiilire nature quake with the tremendous things of God and eterni ty and the dend. I actually staggered down the steps of the London Art gallery under the power of Dore’s "Christ Leav ing the Praetor imn." Brofess you to be i Christian man or woman, and see no divine mission in art, and acknowledge you no obligation either in thanks to God or man ? The LemioiiM of Irt. It is no more the word of God when put before us in printer’s ink than by skillful laying on of colors or designs on metal through incision or corrosion. What a lesson in morals was presented by Hogarth, the painter, in his two pic tures, —1 he Rake’s Progress” and “The Miser’s Feast," and by Thomas Cole’s engravings of the “Voyage of Human Life” and the "Course of Empire” and by Turner’s "Slave Ship!” God in art! Christ in art! Patriarchs, prophets and apostles in art! Angels in art! Heaven in art! The world and the church ought to come to the higher appreciation of the divine mission of pictures, yet the au thors of them have generally been left to semistarvation. West, the great painter, toiled in unappreciation till, be ing a great skater, while on the ice he formed the acquaintance of General Howe of the English army, Who, through coming to admire West as a clever skater, gradually came to appreciate as much that which he accomplished by his hand as by his heel. Poussin, the mighty painter, was pursued and had nothing with which to defend himself against the mob but the arti fitlio, which he held over his head to keep off the stones hurled at him. The pictures of Richard Wilson of England were sold for fabu lous sums of money after his death, but the living painter was glad to get for his “Alcyone” a piece of Stilton cheese. From IG4O to 1643 there were 4,600 pic tures willfully destroyed. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was the habit of some people to spend much of their time in knocking pictures to pieces. In the reign of Charles I it was ordered by par liament that all pictures of Christ be burned. Painters were so badly treated and humiliated in the beginning of the eighteenth century that they were low fi dow n out of the sublimity of their art nnd obliged to give accounts of what they did with their colors. The oldest picture in England, a por trait of Chaucer, though now of great value, was picked out of a lumber garret. Great were the trials of Quentin Matsys, who toiled on from blacksmith’s anvil till, as a painter, he won wide recognition. The first missionaries to Mexico made the fatal mistake of destroying pictures, for the loss of which art and religion must ever lament. But why go so far back when in this year of our Lord to be a painter, except in rare exceptions, means poverty and neglect, poorly fed, poorly clad, poorly housed, because poorly ap preciated? When I hear a man is a paint er, I have two feelings—one of admira tion for the greatness of his soul, and the other of commiseration for the needs of his body. But so it has been in all de partments of noble work. Some of the mightiest have been hardly bestead. Oli ver Goldsmith had such a big patch on the coat over his left breast that when he went anywhere he kept his hat in his hand closely pressed over the patch. The world renowned Bishop Asbury had a salary of? 54 a year. Painters are not the only ones who have endured the lack of appreciation. Let men of wealth take under their patronage the suffering men of art. They lift no complaint; they make no strike for higher wages. But with a keenness of nervous organization which almost always characterizes genius these artists suffer more than any one but God can realize. Encouragement of Artists. There needs to be a concerted effort for the suffering artists of America, not sentimental discourse about what we owe to artists, but contracts that will give them a livelihood; for I am in full sympathy with the Christian farmer who was very busy gathering his fall apples and some one asked him to pray for a poor family, the father of which 1.1 broken his leg, and the busy farmer said: “I cannot stop now to pray, but you can go down into the cellar and get some corned beef and butter and eggs and potatoes; that is all I can do now.” Artists may wish for our pray ers, but they also want practical help from men who can give t’ em work. You have heard scores of sermons for all other kinds of suffering men and wo men, but we need sermons that make pleas for the suffering men and . women of American art. Their work is more true to nature ami life than some of the masterpieces that have become im mortal on the other side of the sea, but it is the fashion of Americans to mention foreign artists and to know little or nothing about our own Copley and Allston ami Inman and Greenough ami Kensett. Let the affluent fling out of their windows and into the back yard valueless daubs on canvas and call in these splendid but unrewarded men and tell them to adorn your walls not only with that which shall please the taste, but enlarge the minds and improve the morals ami save the souls of those who gaze upon them. All American cities need great galleries of art, not only open annually for a few days on exhi bition, but which shall stand open al! the year round, and from early morn ing until Id o’clock at night, and free to all who would come and go. What a preparation for the wear and tear of the day a five minutes’ look in the morning at some picture that will open a door into some larger realm than that in which our population daily drudges. Or what a good thing the half hour of artistic opportunity on the way home in the evening from exhaustion that demands recuperation for mind and soul as well as body! Mho will do for the city where you live what M. M. Corcoran did for Washington and what others have done for Philadelphia and Boston and New York? Men of wealth, if you are too modest to build and endow such a place during your lifetime, why not go to your iron safe and take out vour last will nnd testament ami make a codicil that shall build for the city of vour residence a throne for American art? Take some of that money that would otherwise spoil your children and buil-l (in art gallery that shall associate ■ vour name forever not -only with the great masters of painting who are gone, 1 but with the great masters who are try- • in- to live, and also win the admiration I -Hid love - ,f tens of thousands of people. - ‘vvl.o. nm lh- tohav fine pictures of their • ! O nn wo- hl be advantaged. L) ,'oi>r . I ■-■ build your owiL-monuments ami not leave it t<> tip.' wliii'e I Othvl'n- Some of the l i t people sleeping ill Greenwood have no monuments at all or some crumbling Homs that in a few years will let the rain wash out name and epitaph, while some iuen, whose death was the abatement of it nuisance, have a pile of Aberdeen granite high enough fur a king and eulogies enough to embarrass a seraph. Oh, man of large wealth, instead of leaving to the whim of others your monumental commemoration and epitaphology, to be looked at when people are going to and fro nt the burial of others, build right down in the heart of our great city, or the city where you live, an immense free reading room, or a free musical conservatory, or a free art gallery, the niches for sculpture and the walls abloom with the rise and fall of nations, and lessons of courage for the disheartened, and rest for the weary, and life for the dead; and 150 years from now you will be wielding influences in this world for good. How- much better than white marble, that chills you if you put your hand on it when you touch it in the cemetery, would be a monument in colors, in beaming eyes, in living posses sion, in splendors which under the chan delier w-ould be glowing and warm, and looked at by strolling groups with cata logue in hand on the January night when the necropolis where the body sleeps is all snowed under! Power of PicturcH. The tower of David was hung with 1,000 dented shields of battle; but you, oh man of wealth, may have a grander tower named after you, one that shall be hung not with the symbols of carnage, but with the victories of that art which was so long ago recognized in my text as "pleasant pictures,” Oh, the power of pictures! I cannot deride, as some have done, Cardinal Mazarin, who, when told that he must die, took his last walk through the art gallery of his palace say ing: “Must I quit all this? Look at that Titian! Look at that Correggio! Look at that deluge of Caracci! Farewell, dear pictures!” As the day of the lord of hosts, accord ing to this text, will scrutinize the pic tures, I implore all parents to see that in their households they have neither in book nor newspaper nor on canvas anything that will deprave. Pictures are no longer the exclusive possession of the affluent. There is not a respectable home in these cities that has not specimens of woodcut or steel engraving, if not of painting, and your whole family will feel the moral up lifting or depression. Have nothing on your wall or in books that will familiar ize the young with scenes of cruelty nnd wassail; have only those sketches made by artists in elevated moods and none o' those scenes that seem the product o' artistic delirium tremens. Pictures n not only a strong but a universal lati guage. The human race is divided into al most as many languages as there are na tions, but the pictures may speak to peo ple of all tongues. Volapuk many have hoped, with little reason, would become a worldwide language; but the pictorial is always a worldwide language, and printers' types have no emphasis com pared with it. We say that children are fond of pictures; but notice any man when he takes up a book, and you will see that the first thing that he looks at is the pictures. Have only those in your house that appeal to the better nature. One engraving has sometimes decided an eternal destiny. Under the title of fine arts there have come here from France a class of pictures which elaborate argu ment has tried to prove irreproachable. They would disgrace a barroom, and they need to be confiscated. Y'our children will carry the pictures of their father’s house with them clear on to the grave, and, passing that marble pillar, will take them through eternity. Furthermore, let all reformers and all Sabbath school teachers and all Chris tian workers realize that, if they would be effective for good, they must make pic tures, if not by chalk on blackboards or kindergarten designs or by pencil on can vas, then by words. Arguments are soon forgotten, but pictures, whether in lan guage or in colors, are what produce stronger effects. Christ was always tell ing what a thing was like, and his ser mon on the mount was a great picture gallery, beginning with a sketch of a "city on a hill that cannot be hid,” nnd ending with a tempest beating against two houses, one on the rock and the other on the sand. The parable of the prodigal son, a picture; parable of the sower, who went forth to sow, a picture; parable of the unmerciful servant, a picture; para ble of the ten virgins, a picture; parable of the talents, a picture. The world wants pictures, and the appetite begins with the child, who consents to go early to bed it the mother will sit beside him nnd rehearse a story, which is only a pic ture. When we see how much has been ac complished in secular directions by pic tures— Shakespeare’s tragedies, a picture; Victor Hugo’s writings, all pictures; John Ruskin’s and Tennyson’s and Long fellow’s works, all pictures—why not en list, as far as possible, for our churches and schools and reformatory work and evangelistic endeavor the power of thought that ean be put into word pic tures, if not pictures in color? Yea. why not all young men draw for themselves on paper, with pen or pencil, their com ing career, of virtue if they prefer that, of vice if they prefer that? After making the picture, put it on the wall or paste it on the fly leaf of some favorite book, that you may have it before you. I read of a man who had been executed for murder, and the jailer found afterward a picture made on the wall of the cell by the sin’s own hand, a picture of a flight of stairs. On the lowest step he had writ ten, “Disobedience to parents;” on the second, “Sabbath breaking;” on the third, “Drunkenness nnd gambling;” on the fourth, “Murder.” nnd on the fifth and top step. “A gallows.” If that man had made that picture before he took the first step, he never would have taken any of them! Oh, man, make another pic ture, a bright picture, an evangelical pic ture, and I will help you make it! I sug gest six steps for this flight of stairs. On the first step write the words, “A na ture changed by the Holy Ghost and washed in the blood of the Lamb; ’ on the second step, “Industry and good com panionship;” on the third step, “ A Chris tian home with a family altar;” on the fourth step. “Ever widening usefulness;” on the fifth step. "A glorious departure from this world;’’ on the sixth step, ••Heaven, heaven. K-nven!” Write it three times, .-ml let letters >•! the one word be made up of banners, the second of coronets ami the third of thrones! Promise me that von will do that, ami I will promise t<> I'"-" y'' l ’ '•<> tll<? step, if the 1.0 1 "ill. through his par tl-.nitig grace. b: ttsg me then- too. \ <ir<l *»f And 1 am g mg I” say n word of <h<-ei to people "ho have ne'er bad a word of i-onsolatmn mi that subject. There are men ami v. - i. e:i in this world I by hundreds of thousands who have a fine mitur.il taste, ami yet all their lives that taste has been suppressed, nnd. al though they could appreciate the galler ies of Dresden ami Vienna and Naples ’ far more than nine hundred ami ninety nine people out of a thousand who visit them, they may never go, for they must , support their households, and bread and ' schooling for their children are of more i Importance than pictures. Tlrnugh fond of music, they are compelled to live amid discord, and, though i'-.ml of architecture, they dwell in clumsy abodes, and, though appreciative of all that engravings and ‘ ; paintings can do, they are in perpetual ' deprivation. You are going, after you , get on the sixth step of that stair, just spoken of, to find yourselves in the royal gallery of the universe, the concentered splendors of all worlds before your trans ' port 'd vision. In some vay all the thrill ing scenes through which we and the | church of God h. . e p:> -cd in our earthly state will be pictured or brought to mind. At a cyclorama of Gettysburg a blind 1 man who lost his sight in that battle was with his child heard talking while standing before that picture. The blind man s.-M to the daughter, "Are there at the right of the picture ! some regiments m.-tr.-mng up a hill?” "Yes,” she said. "Weil," said the blind man, "is there a general on horseback leading them on?” “Yes.” she said. 1 “Well, is there rushing down on these > men a cavalry charge?” “Yes,” was the reply. "And do there seem to be many ‘ dying and dead?” “Yes,” was the an i swer. “Well, now, do you see a shell i from the woods bursting near the wheel • of a cannon?” “Yes,” she said. "Stop ’■ right there!" said the blind man. “That ! is the last thing I ever saw on earth! ' What a time it was, Jenny, when I lost • my eyesight!” But when you, who have found life a hard battle, a very Gettys- l burg, shall stand in the royal gallery of 1 heaven and with your new vision begin " to see and understand that which in your earthly blindness you could not see at all, you will point out to your celestial comrades, perhaps to your own dear i children who have gone before, the : scenes or the earthly conflicts in which ; you participated, saying: "There from r that hill of prosperity 1 was driven • back; in that valley of humiliation I e was wounded. There I lost my eye t sight. That was the way the world 1 looked when I last saw it. But what a - grand thing to get celestial vision and > stand here before the cyclorama of all worlds while the rider on the White 1 horse goes uu ‘conquering and to con quer,’ the moon under his feet and the stars of heaven for his tiara!" M Morphine and Whiskey h»b its treated without pain or confinement. Cure guaran teed or no pay. B H. VEAL, Man’gr Lithia Springs San itarium, Box 8, Austell, Ga. a a— I r* Al* 1 DIJH I Vwo month’s treatment of LsA I Annll I Catarrh of the head and nose *’ c * a - r * * X I f o r 50c. Best ami simplest ? HI ACH r““" remedy ever discovered. W I Booklet and sample for 2 cents. ATLANTA PREPARATION CO. 113 N. Pkyok St., Atlanta,Ga. 3 r • TO THE ? S.’f.oo SAVED g BY THE ; SEABOARD AIR LINE. 1 ' Atlanta to Richmond |l4 5( 1 Atlanta to Washington 14 5( ’ Atlanta to Baltimore via Washing- ton k 15 7( Atlant* to Baltimore via Norfolk * and Bay Line steamer 15.28 Atlanta to Philadelphia via Nor- ® folk 18.05 Atlanta to Philadelphia via 'Wash ington 18.5 C Atlanta to New York via Richmond and Washington 21.0( Atlanta to New York via Norfolk, Va. and Cape Charles Route 20.5’ Atlanta to New York via Norfolk, Va., and Norfolk and Washington . Steamboat Company, via Wash- ington " 21.iX Atlanta to New York via Norfolk, , Va., Bay Line steamer to Balti- more, and rail to New York 20.5.' v Atlanta to New York via Norfolk and Old Dominion S. S. Co. (meals and stateroom included) 20.2.’ Atlanta to Boston via Norfolk and steamer (meals and stateroom in- ' eluded) 21.5( Atlanta to Boston via Washington ; and New York 24 0( • The rate mentioned above to Washing ‘ ton, Baltimore, Philadelphia’, New Yon and Boston are $3 less than by any othei " all rail line. The above rates apply fron Atlanta. Tickets to the east are sold fron most all points in the territory of the ’ Southern States Passenger Association via the Seaboard Air Line, at $3 less th ar 8 by any other all rail line. ” For tickets, sleeping car accommoda •’ tions, call on or address » B. A. NEWLAND, Gen. Agent Pass Dept WM. BISHOP ('LEMENTS, 1 T. P. A., No. 6 Kimball House, Atlanta e ■ , - ' 1— o oir ITGEORGIA R’yeft y 1 n i- Schedule Effective April 1, 1899. DEPARTURES. e Lv. <; r>fHn daily for . 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