The Monitor-register. [volume] (Woodstown, Salem Co., N.J.) 1892-1972, 1896-11-06
"A PERFECT HARMONY
REV. DIR. TALMAGE DRAWS A LESSON
! FROM MUSIC.
He Takes "The Chant of the Stars" For
the Subject of Sermon of Great Beauty
and Power-The Final Harmony.

the Subject of Sermon of Great Beaut.
and Power-The Final Harmony.
WASHINGTON, Nov 1.-The musica
resources of all nations seem drawn
upon by DR.. Talmage in this sermon
to illustrate most practical truth. His
subject was "The Chant of the Stars, >
and the text Job xxxviii, 6, z. "Who
laid the cornerstone thereof, when the
morning stars sang together?'
We have all seen the ceremony at the
laying of the cornerstone of church,
asylum Or Masonic temple. Into the
hollow of the stone were placed scrolls
OF history and important documents, tc
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 sanctlty.
We remember some venerable man who
presided welding 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 De
constructed. The leaves of the notebooks
fluttered in the wind and were turned
over with a great rustling, and we re-
member how the bass, baritone, tenor,
contralto and soprano voices commln-
gled. They had for many days been re-
hearsing the special programme that 1T
might he worthy of the cornerstone lay
ing.
LAYING the Cornerstone.
In nv text the poet of Uz calls us to
n erapder 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 embank-
ments Of clouds stood the angelic choris-
tiers unrolling their librettos of overture,
and other worlds clapped shining GYM
halls while the ceremony went on, and
God. the Architect, by stroke of light aft
or stroke of light, dedicated this great
cathedral of a world, with mountains
for pillars, and sky for frescoed ceiling,
and Towering fields for floor, and sum
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 immensely had been spread
ont 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 a gamut with all sounds, in
donations, modulations, the space be-
tween the worlds musical interval,
trembling Of stellar light quaver, the
thunder bass clef, the wind among
trees a treble clef. That is the way God
made all things perfect harmony.
But one day harp string snapped in
the great orchestra. One day voice
sounded out of tune. One day a discord,
harsh and terrific, grated upon the glo-
rious antiphon. 1t was sin that made
the dissonance, and that harsh discord
has been sounding through the centuries.
All the work of Christians and philan-
thIopists 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 l am divinely
helped, I will make it plain that sin is
discord and righteousness harmony.
That in general things are out Of tune
is as plain as to musicians 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,
tisordered eye and MONDAY light in
quarrel, rheumatic limb and damp
weather in struggle, neuralgias and
pneumonias and consumptions and cpl
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 pulsation 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 lisordered.
The human intellect out Of. tune; the
judgment wrongly swerved, or the
memory leaky, or the will weak, or the
temper inf1ammable, the well balanced
mind exceptional.
Domestic life out of tune; only here
and there conjugal outbreak of incom-
patibility of temper through the divorce
courts, or filial outbreak about IA
theirs will through the surrogate's court,
or a 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 i'll
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, 600 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 a bird as can be found in
all the pathological 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
south all kindly beasts dwell, they chose
the growing bear. And in the world e
heraldry favorite figure is the dragon,
the tabled winged serpent, ferooious
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 symbols are express
i've of the way nation feels toward ma
ton. Discord wide as the continent and
bridging the seas.
Creation Groans.
suppose you have noticed how
warmly in love dry goods stores are with
other dry goods stores, and how highly
grocerymen think of the sugars of the
grocerymen on the same street. And IN
what eulogistjc way allopathic and
homeopathic doctors speak of each other,
and how ministers will sometimes put
ministers on that beautiful cooking in
strument which the English call spit
An iron roller with spikes on it-and
turned by crank before hot fire. and
then if the minister being roasted cries
ont against If tie lrcn who are turning