The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-11-06


VSssSsSSSSS MIlRW laying of the cor
REV. TALMAeE nerstone of church,
asylum or Masonic temple Into
the hollow of the stone were
placed scrolls of history and i'm.
portant documents, to be suggestive
if, one or two hundred 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 WELDING the trowel or
hammer. We remember also the music
as the choir stood on the scattered
stones and timber of the building
about to be constructed. The leaves
and were turned over with great
rustling. and we remember how the
bass, baritone, tenor, contralto, and
soprano voices commingled. They had
for many days been rehearsing the
special programme, that they might be
worthy of the cornerstone laying.
The fact is that the whole universe
dithyramb, a musical portfolio. The
great sheet of immensely had been
spread out, and written on it were the
stars, the smaller of them minims, the
larger of them sustained notes. The
meteors marked the staccato passages,
the whole heavens gamut with all
sounds, intonations, modulations, the
space between the worlds musical
interval, trem bling of stellar light a
quaver, the thunder a bass clef the
wind among trees a treble clef. That
is the way God made all things per-
feet harmony.
But one day harp string snapped
in the great orchestra. One day a
voice sounded out of tune. One day a
discord, harsh and terrific, grated upon
the glorious antiphon. 1t was sin that
made the dissonance, and that harsh
discord has been sounding through the
centuries. All the work of Christians
and philanthropists and reformers of
all ages is to stop that discord and get
all things back into the perfect har-
mony which was heard at the laying
of the cornerstone when the morning
stars sang together. Before l get
through, if am divinely helped, will
make it plain that sin is discord and
righteousness harmony. That, in gen.
eral, things are out of tune is as plain
as to a musicians ear is the unhappy
clash of clarionet and bassoon in an
orchestral rendering.
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 ep-
ilepsies in flocks sweep upon neigh bor-
hoods and cities. Where you find one
person with sound throat and keen
eyesight, and alert ear and easy respi-
ration, and regular pulsation and
supple limb. and prime digestion and
steady nerves, you find a 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 infiammable, the well-balanced
mind exceptional Domestic life out
of tune; only here and there a conjugal
outbreak of incompatibility of temper
through the divorce courts, or a filial
outbreak about fathers will through
the surrogate's court, or a case at wife
beating or misunderstanding through
the criminal courts, but thousands of
families with June outside and January
within.
Society out of tune; labor and cap
ital, 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
and lying, and subterfuge,
and double-dealing, and sycophancy,
and charlatanism, and revenge, have
for six thousand years been banging
away at the keys and stamping the
pedals
On all sides there is a shipwreck of
harmonies. Nations in discord with
out realizing it; so wrong is the feeling
of nation for nation that sym bols
chosen are fierce and destructive. In
this country, 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 cata-
logues. 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 south
all kindly beasts dwell, they
chose the growing bear; and in the
worlds heraldry a favorite figure is
the dragon, the tabled 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, creature which Is
chiefly celebrated for its deadly sting. |
But, after all, these sym Dols are ex-