Let me speak to you, then of the sill of THE DIVINE MASTER. We have pictured Jesus in many characters, as Saviour, Teacher, Brother, Friend. I desire to introduce Him to you this morning as the Author of all the world's music; as the greatest of all organ builders; among composers, the Master of all whom we call "the great masters"; as the Organist whose fingers wake the music of the spheres. For it is no fanciful metaphor which describes Him in the text as a Singer; it is a matter of fact, which I shall attempt to show, that the world's Master Musician of all ages is none other than Jesus Christ.

You have but to remember that Christ is the Creator to recognize the truth of this. I need not stay to prove His creatorship save to quote a passage or two: "All things were made be Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Faith will find in the dictum of Scripture sufficient proof of Christ's creatorship. That established, let us think of His works.

May I attempt a definition of the province of music? Music is the eldest sister in the family of fine arts. The litterateur crystallizes thought and emotion in silence; the sculptor petrifies life; the painter makes space and relation the handmaids of beauty; the actor holds the litterateur's crystals up to the light; the architect trades, or wars, or revels, or worships, in stone. But the musician melts the litterateur's crystals into a rippling brook; gives

voice to the statue; fills the painter's spaces with singing angels; dissolves the actor's flashing crystals into goblets of wine; fills the architect's temples with devotion; and employs sound to express what, in other arts, would be an unutterably beautiful soul.

But what is sound? Do you know that the difference between sound and light is merely a difference of vibration? The slower vibrations of the air, which scientists say, are from eight to forty thousand per second, we detect by the ear and call them sound. By the sensitive nerves of the eye, we perceive the very rapid vibrations of the other, which are from nearly five hundred to seven hundred trillions per second, and call them sight. The difference of pitch in sound, and of colour in light, is said to be wholly a difference of vibrations. Sound is impossible where there is no air; for sound is transmitted by the vibrations of the air. Who then created the medium of sound and light and made possible the expression of a beautiful soul? Who designed and created the acoustics of the universe? It was the voice of the Singer of my text which broke the silence of the formless void and set it vibrating with music, the more rapid vibrations, moved by the impulsion of His will, which filled the worlds with light.

But in redemption also, the Singer is the Master Musician. Sin is discord; and he must be devoid of all capacity for the perception or appreciation of spiritual harmonies, who can walk in the world and fail to detect it. "Sin is the transgression of the law." It produces irregular vibrations which result in false notes, in unmusical sounds. When "Sin entered into the world", the world was caused to vibrate irregularly; it was set out of time with the will of God.

This world was a stop, that is, a set of pipes, in the grand organ of the universe; and it was the stop that pleased the Master's ear more than all others, played singly or combined. For He delighted not chiefly in the Vox Angelica nor in the Vox Celeste, not in the voice of the angels, nor in the voice of celestial spirits of superior rank. The Master's favourite stop in His great organ of creation was the Vox Humana, for "His delights were with sons of men."

But a serpent got into His organ and put that favourite stop, every pipe of it, out of tune, so that when the Master came to inspect the organ to see whether the Vox Humana was all bad, His verdict was: "There is none righteous none in tune with the divine will no, not one." He might have closed that stop and played on without it. Angels and archangels would still have sung to His accompaniment; cherubim would have chanted their wisdom; seraphim would have sung their flaming sonnets of love; and the denizens of unfallen worlds, in unbroken harmony, would have poured forth their volume of praise and joined to sell the mighty hallelujah chorus of the skies. But the Master would not have it so. His organ was incomplete, for a world was out of tune. And what true musician can play with pleasure and organ that is out of tune? The Master missed His much beloved Vox Humana. Angels may have wondered at His taste and marveled at His choice. The Jews have a tradition that Lucifer rebelled in Heaven when he learned that God would love men better than angels. If the tradition were true, it would serve to show that there was jealousy in the first of all choirs a chorus of worlds because the Master selected this world to sing a solo.

At all events this Master of all musicians could not delight in His organ while one stop was out of tune; and clothing Himself in flesh He came down to tune it: "God was in Christ reconciling attuning the world unto Himself." It cost Him much to tune His organ; "They pierced His hands and His feet," the psalm from which our text is taken, tells us. But he finished the work at last. He restored the stop, one pipe at a time, to more than its ancient sweetness. He made it the "principal," the diapason, the foundation stop on the great organ, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God."

I have spoken of Christ, the organ builder, and of Jesus, the organ tuner, but will you bear in mind that He is the Composer and Organist also? For in things natural and spiritual, it is His hand which preserves, as it originated, the harmony of the universe; "Upholding all things by the word of His power."

Is your ear trained to the appreciation of divine harmonies? Do you stop and listen when His hand sweeps the keys? Do you hear His music in the treetops, in the song of birds, and in the thunder of the sea?

What are day and night, the seasons of the year, but stops in the great organ, drawn, controlled, played by the Master's hand?

And have you heard what I may call His providential playing? What strange stops He draws! What mysterious combinations! To the untrained ear, what apparent discords! That plaintive minor tones! And yet withal what heavenly harmonies! Have you heard His sweet far-off "salicional," like Zephyrus whispering among the willows which bend over the Silent River? Ah? This Singer knows how to accompany His own song. And, though we may need many lessons, we shall learn by and by,

Therefore, fear not to listen to His music. If you are one of the pipes in the Vox Humana which He has attuned to His will, and through which the heavenly Wind, Who bloweth where He listeth, waits to breathe the power which gives the whole organ voice, you may well respond to the tender touch of His wounded hands, or the firmer but still gentle tread of His pierced feet; for there will be no false note in life's music while He is at the keys. Sometimes He will strike a chromatic chord, or set life's music in a minor key, but the time and tune will be perfect, and the harmony such as angels love to hear.

Shall disobedience spoil the organ's response?

You have no doubt heard the story of the great composer Mendelssohn's visit to Frieburg cathedral? He asked permission to play the organ, but the organist, not knowing him, at first refused the request. At last, after much entreaty, he consented to let the stranger go to the organ; but, when Mendelssohn began to play, it is said, the old organist burst into tears, and asked him his name. When he heard who he was he wept afresh, and said: "Only to think! I had almost forbid Mendelssohn to touch my organ!

And a stranger comes into the temple of our hearts today and asks our consent to His making melody in our hearts unto the Lord. Do you know Him? But for grace, we had all refused until now to let Him touch the organ. Look at Him closely and if it be that

Give Him the key to the organ and bid Him play when and what he likes. Say to Him: