Connecticut western news., 1896-11-05
A PERFECT HARMONY
REV. DR. TAlMA6e DRAWS A LESSON
 FROM MUSIC.

the Subject of \ Sermon of Great Beauty
 and Power-The Final Harmony.
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 1.-The musical resources of all nations seem drawn upon by Dr. Talmage in this sermon to illustrate most practical truth. His and the text Job xxxviii, 6, :, Who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together?"
 We have all seen the ceremony at tbe laying of the cornerstone of church, asylum or Masonic temple. Into the hollow of the stone were placed scrolls of history and important documents, to be suggestive if. 100 or 200 years after. the building should be destroyed by fire or torn down. We remember the silver trowel or iron hammer that smote the square piece of granite into sanctity. We remember some venerable man who presided yielding the trowel or ham, mer We remember also the music as the choir stood on the scattered stones and timber of the building about to be constructed. The leaves of the note books fiuttered in the wind and were turned over with a great rustline, and we re- member how the bass, baritone, tenor. contralto and soprano voices commin- gled. They had for many days been re- hearsing the special programme that it might be worthy of the cornerstone lay ing.
 Laying the Cornerstone.
 In my text the poet of Uz calls us to a grander ceremony-the laying of the foundation of this great temple of a world The cornerstone was block of light and the trowel was of celestial crystal. All about and on the embark ments of clouds stood the angelic choris ters nnrolling their librettos of overture, and other worlds clapped shining cym- bals while the ceremony went on. and God, the Architect, by stroke of light aft CT stroke of light, dedicated this great cathedral of world, with mountains for pillars, and sky for frescoed ceiling, and towering fields for floor, and sun rise and midnight aurora for upholstery. "Who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together?'
 The fact is that the whole universe was a complete cadence, an unbroken dithyramb, musical portfolio. The great sheet of immensity had been spread out, and written on it were the stars, the smaller of them minlms, the larger of them sustained notes The meteors marked the staccato passages, the whole heavens gamut with all sounds, in tonations, modulations, the space be- tween the worlds a musical interval, trembling of stellar light quaver, the thunder bass clef, the wind among trees treble clef. That is the way God made all things a perfect harmony.
 But oiie day a harp string snapped in the great orchestra One day a voice sounded out of tune One day discord, harsh and terrific, grated upon the glo- rious antiphon. It was sin that made the dissonance, and that harsh discord has been sounding through the centuries All the work of Christians and philan- thfopists and reformers of all ages is to stop that discord and get all things back into the perfect harmony which was heard at the laying of the cornerstone. when the morning stars sang together. Before I get through. if am divinely helped, will make it plain that sin is discord and righteousness harmony. That in general things are out of tune is as plain as to a musician's ear is the unhappy clash of clarinet and bassoon in an orchestral rendering.
 Out of Tune.
 The worlds health out of tune; weak lungs and the atmosphere in collision, disordered eye and monday light in quarrel, rheumatic limb and damp weather in struggle, neuralgias and pneumonias and consumptions and epi- lepsies in focks sweep upon neighbor hoods and cities. Where you find one person with sound throat and keen eye sight and alert ear and easy respiration and regular puisation and supple limb and prime digestion and steady nerves, you find hundred who have to be very careful because this or that or the other physical function is disordered
 The human intellect out of tune; the judgment wrongly swerved, or the memory leaky, or the will weak, or the temper inf1ammable, the we'll balanced mind exceptional.
 Domestic life out of tune; only here and there a conjugai outbreak of incom patibility of temper through the divorce courts, or filial outbreak about a fla ther' 8 will through the surrogate's s court, or case of wife beating or husband poisoning through the criminal courts but thousands of families with June outside and January within.
 Society out of tune; labor and capital their hands on each others throat; spirit of caste keeping those down in the social scale who are struggling to get up and putting those who are up in anxiety lest they have to come down. No wonder the old pianoforte of society is all out of tune, when hypocrisy and lying and subterfuge and double dealing and sycophancy and charlatanism and revenge have for 6, GOO years been bang ing away at the keys and stamping the pedals.
 On all sides there is shipwreck of harmonies. Nations in discord without realizing it. So wrong is the feeling of nation for nation that symbols chosen are fierce and destructive. In this coun- try, where our skies are full of robins and doves and morning larks, we have our national symbol, the fierce and filthy eagle, as cruel bird as can be found in all the ornithological catalogues. In Great Britain, where they have lambs and fallow deer, their symbol is the merciless lion. In Russia, where from between her frozen north and blooming sou: h all kindly beasts dwell, they chose tho growing bear. And in the worlds beraldry a fayorite figure is the dragon, the fabled winged serpent, ferocious and dreadful And so fond is the world of contention that we climb out through the heavens and baptize one of the other planets with the spirit of battle and call it Mars, after the god of war. And we give to the eighth sign of the zodiac the name of the scorpion, a creature which