The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-23
SINGING IN TUNF.

and professional Singing. A goOd portion OF
the world is all the while singing out of tune.
With the ears of our souls dulled to the grand
harmony of earth, or too material to catch its
fine melodies, many of us go laundering on,
singing loudly, but singing out of tune.
Still the perfect song goes on, marred a little
by those who have not the right pitch; but,
swelling and echoing from land to land, the
grand chorus goes on and on.
There are o still singing of
last years disasters, some are chanting
over the ruins of Ischia, but a great many more
are sounding the loud anthem over new cities
rising in the plain, new fields redeemed from
wild beast and savage, new houses dotting
hillsides Just trembling forthe first time to the
sound of the woodlands ak and the crash of
falling trees. Some have their faces turned
toward the sunken lands of Java. They sing
out of tune to the humble of the earthquake
and the swish of devastating waters. Their
sackcloth of mourning is strewn with the
ashes of the volcanoes. But the ranks of man
kind, with faces toward the future, and
eyes toward heaven, see the long
grass thickly sown on a thousand
hilltops and innumerable cattle in the lush
fields. They sing of coming harvests, and,
with abiding faith, drive their plows afield
and turn up fresh burrows for the ready seed.
1t has rained a deluge, and the sun and stars
did not shine for a fortnight. A dirge goes
up from shallow hearts that the world is so
sad and comfortless. Ten thousand others
barred their faces to the rain and reverently
thanked God that it is so well, while tears Of
sympathy fall for those to whom these rains
brought desolation and hunger and homeless
ness.
1t is a grand thing to go through the world
singing all the way. 1t is q heaven-born dis
position that sees over the rim of narrow cir
cumstance and %rejoices continually because
there is so little evil and so much good. The
world is alive with prosperity and gladness.
During the year that has passed there were
disasters by land and by sea, by fire and by
food. Thousands persisted miserably in the
appalling convulsions of nature. Tens Of
millions gathered their harvests in peace and
saw no shadow on the face of the earth, no
cloud in the heavens. 1t is a pitiful thing to
sing out of tune because the fructi-
flying rains muddy the street or take
the curl out of a bonnet plume.
We should all hasten to grow large enough to
get away from such puerility. A full-statured
man would scorn to be fretful over petty an
noyances; a well-endowed woman should
stand on the same high plane. To-day it
rains, and perforce you cannot leave your
homes. Rejoice that you have a home that
the creeping and crawling, the pitiless en-
croaching floods cannot reach. Those who are
in the midst of the floods should be comforted
by the thought that the waters subside,
and again your workshops and facto-
ries will hum with industry and your streets
resound with the rattle of traffic.
Even now this great world of ours looks up to
God with a smiling face, confident that out of
all the roar and rush of floods, from earth
quake shocks and devouring flames He will
deliver the people. The nations may still sing
and be glad, the people lift up their voices in
thanksgiving and praise.
AS in the material, so in the political world
too many men sing out of tune, Because
here and there a workshop closes, the consti-
MISUNDERSTANDING man sees wrong every
where and will not be comforted. The little man
who can see but ono thing at a time, and who
has no idea of the great world of people and
their vast affairs, so closely interlocking that
one cannot be harmed without injuring the
other-such a small creature is apt to exalt
himself in his own esteem and to take it upon
himself 90 be the Jeremiah of modern times.
Nosing about and dragging with him Il liver
four sizes too large for his heart and brain, and
a spleen still bigger, he is constantly III search
of something wrong, and always finds it. He
state, and placing his eye close mp to
it, or bodily crawling into it, he
i%magines that the craft is about to founder,
so he sets up a wall over it, and confidently
disaster. A drop Of disappointment
falls into his Cruel. and he argues that Il cata-
clysm is Mt hand. He hears of a defaulting
official. and with impudent self-assertion de-
the whole hundred thousand as cor
rupt, and loudly calls for reform" The
like the world, is steadily moving on