The Princeton union., 1896-11-12


close the service with:
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love
The earth is diametered and circum-
ferenced with discord, and the music
that was rendered at the laying of the
worlds cornerstone. when the morn
ing stars sang together, is not heard
now; and though here and there, from
this and that part Of society, and from
this and that part of the earth, there
comes up a thrilling solo Of love, or a
warble of worship, OF. a sweet duet Of
patience, they are drowned out by
sdiscOrd that shakes the earth.
Paul says, 1.-THE whole creation
groaneth,' and while the nightingale
and the woodlark and the canary and
the plover sometimes sing SO sWeetly
that their notes have been written out
that the cuckoo sings in the key Of D,
and that the cormorant is basso in
the winged choir, yet sportsman's gun
and the autumnal blast often leave
them ruffied and bleeding or dead in
meadow or forest. Paul was right, for
the groan in nature browns out the
prima donnas of the sky.
Tartini, the great musical composer,
dreamed one night that he made con
tract with Satan, the latter to- be ever
in the composers service. BUT one
night he handed to Satan a violin, on
which Diabolus played such sweet
music that the composer was awaken
ed by the emotion and tried to repro
duce the sounds, and therefrOm was
written Tartini's most famous piece,
"The Devils Sonata dream ingen-
iOuS, but faulty for all melody de-
scends from heaven and only discords
ascend from he'll. All hatreds, feuds,
controversies, backbitings and reveng-
es are the devils sonata, are diabolic
fugue are demomiac phantasy, are
grand marches Of doom, are allegros OF
perdition.
But If in this world things in general
are out Of tune to our frail ear. how
much more so to beings angelic and
deific! 1t takes a skilled artist to fully
appreciate disagreement of sound.
Many have no capacity to detect a de-
feet Of musical execution, and, though
there We're in one bar as many offenses
against harmony as could crowd in be-
tween the lower f of the bass and the
higher 6 of the soprano, it would give
them no discomfort, while on the fore
head Of the educated artist beads OF
perspiration would stand out as re-
suit of the narrowing dissonance.
While an amateur was performing On
a piano and had just struck the wrong
chord, John Sebastian Bach, the i'm
mortal composer, entered the room,
and the amateur rose in embarrass-
ment, and Bach rushed past the host,
who stepped forward to greet him,
and before the keyboard had stopped
vibrating put his adroit hand upon the
keys and changed the painful inhar-
mony into glorious cadence. Then
Bach turned and gave salutation to the
host.
But the worst of al ldiscord is moral
discord. If society and the world are
painfully discordant tc imperfect man,
what must they be to a perfect Cod!
People try to define what sin is. 1t
seems to me that sin is getting out Of
harmony with God, a disagreement
with his holiness, with his purity, with
his love, with his commands, our will
clashing with his will, the finite dash
ing against the infinite, the f:ail against
the puissant, the created against the
creator. II a thousand musicians, with
flute, and cornet-a-pi piston, and trumpet,
and vloloncello, and hautboy and from
bone, and all the wind and stringe1 in
struments that ever gathered III a
Dusseldorf jubilee, should resolve that
they would play out of tune, and put
concord to the rack, and make the
place wild with shrieking and grating
and rasping sounds, they could not
make such a pandemonium as that
which RACES in a sinful soul when God
listens to the play of it's thoughts, pas
sions and emotions-discord, lifelong
discord, maddening discord.
The world pays more for discOrd than
| it does for consonance. High prices
have been paid for music. One man
gave 1926 to hear the Swedish song
stress in New York, and another $625
| to hear her in Boston, and another $500
! to hear her in Providence. Fabulous
prices have been paid for sweet sounds,
but far more has been paid for discord.
| The Crimean war cost 81, 100000, ,OOO,
and the American Civil war over So
500, 100000, and the war debts Of pro-
| fessed Christian nations are about $15,-
! O0O,OOO,O0O. The world pays for this
| red ticket, which admits it to the sat
urnala of broken bones. and death ag-
Onies, and destroyed cities. and pIowed
! graves, and crushed hi arts any amount
of money Satan asks Discord! Dis
| cord!
But have to tell you that the song
the morning stars sang together at the
laying of the worlds corner. stone is to
resound again. Mozart's greatest over.
ture was composed one night when he
| was several times overpo wered with
sleep, and artists say they can tell the
| places in the music where he awak-
ened. 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 existence 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 Of all reform asso-
Citations help to bring the race back to
the original harmony. The rebellious
| heart to be attuned. social life to be at
tuned, commercial ethics to be attuned,
| internationally to be attuned, hemi-
spheres to be attnncd.
In o1den times the choristers had a
tuning fork, with two prongs, and they
would strike it on the back Of pew or
| music rack, and put it to the ear and
| then start the tune, and all the other