The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-11-13

GOD listens to the play Of Its thoughts.
passions, and cmotions-discord, life.
long discord, maddening discord.
The world pays more for discord
than it does for consonce. High prices
have been paid for music. One man
gave $225 to hear tue Swedish song
stress in New York, and another S6e5
to hear her in Boston, and another
$3.50 to hear her in Providence. Fabu-
lous prices have been paid for sweet
sounds, but far more has been paid
for discord. The Crimean war cost
ST. roo, O0O, 900, and the American civil
war cost over SO, 800, 900. and the war
debts of protested Christian nations are
about SIS noa, 100000 The world pays
for this red ticket, which admits it to
the saturnalia of broken bones, and
death agonies, and destroyed cities.
and plowed graves, and crushed
hearts, any amount of money Satan
asks. Discordl Discordl
But have to tell you that the song
that the morning stars sang together
at the laying of the worlds corner
stone is to resound again. Mozart's
greatest overture was composed one
powered with sleep, and artists say
they can tell the places in the music
where he was falling asleep, and the
| places where he awakened. So the
overture of the morning stars,
spoken of in my text, has been
asleep. but it will awaken and
be more grandly rendered by
the evening stars of the worlds ex.
istence than by the morning stars, and
the vespers will be sweeter than the
mathis The work of all good men
and women and of all good churches
and ali reform associations help to
bring the race back to the original
harmony. The rebellious heart to be
attuned, social life to be attuned, COM
mercial ethics to be attuned, interna-
tionality to be attuned, hemispheres
to be attuned.
In olden times the choristers had a
tuning fork with two prongs, and they
| would strike it on tho back of pew or
music rack, and put it to the ear, and
then start the tune, and all the other
voices would join. In modern orches-
ira the leader has complete instru-
ment rightly attuned, and he sounds
that, and all the other performers tune
the keys of their instruments to make
them correspond, and draw the bow
over the string, and listen, and sound
it over again, until all the keys are
screwed to concert pitch, and the dis
cords melt into one great symphony,
and the curtain hoists. and the baton
taps, and audiences are raptured with
| Schumann's Paradise and the Peri"
or Rossini's "Stab bat Mater" or Bach's
"Magnificat' 10 D.
Now, our world can never be at
tuned by an imperfect instrument.
Even Cremona would not do. Heaven
has ordained the only instrument, and
| it is made out of the wood of the cross.
and the voices that accompany it are
imported voices, cantatrices OF the
first Christmas night, when Heaven
serenaded the earth with GLORY to
God in the highest, and on the earth
peace, good will to men," Lest we
start too far off, and get lost in gen.
eralities, we had better begin with
ourselves, get our own hearts and
lives in harmony with the eter-
nal Christ. Oh, for His almighty
spirit to attune us, to chord
our will with His, to modulate our
life with His life, and bring us into
unison with all that is pure, and self
sacrificing, and heavenly! The strings
of our nature are all broken and
| twisted, and the bow is SO slack that it
can not evoke anything mellifluous.
| The instrument made for Heaven to
play on has been roughly twanged
and struck by influences worldly and
demoniac. Oh, master hand of Christ,
restore this split, and fractured, and
despoiled, and unstrung nature, until
first we shall wall out for our sin and
then thrill with divine pardon!
In the sixteenth century the singers
called the Fischer Brothers reached
the lowest bass ever recorded, and the
highest note ever trilled was by La
Bastardella, and Catalini's voice had a
| compass of three and a half octaves;
but Christianity is more wonderful, for
| it runs all up and down the greatest
heights and the deepest depths Of the
worlds necessity. and it will compass
everything and brig it in accord with
the song which the morning stars sang
at the laying of the worlds corner
stone. All the sacred music in homes,
and concert halls, and churches, tends
toward this contamination. Make II
more and more hearty, Sing in your
families. Sing in your places of bust
ness. If we with proper spirit use
these faculties, we are rehearsing for
the skies.
o, Lord, our God, quickly usher in
the whole worlds peace jubilee, and