The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-11-11

rom heaven aLI only dlScorGS ascend
rom hell. All hatreds, feu1s, con-
backbitings aud revenges
ire the devils sonata, are diabolic fu-
que, are demonoiac phantasy, are
grand march of doom, are allegro OF
oerdition.
But if in this world things in general
are out Of tune to our frail ear, how
much more so tc beings angelic ana
lei6c. It takes skilled artist to 1u!ly
disagreement OF SOUND.
Many have no capacity to detect a oe'
feet OF musical execution, and tnou3h
there were in one bar as many otfenses
against harmony as could crowd IN be
tween the lower Z OF the bass and the
higher G OF the soprano II would give
them no discomfort; While on the
forehead CT the educated arts: beads
OF perspira.ion would stand out as 8
result 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 vi
brating put bis 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 all discord is moral
discord. If society and the world are
painfully discordant to imperfect man
what must they be to a perfect God
People try to define what sin is. 1t
seems to me that sin is getting out Of
harmony with God, g disagreement
with hisholiness, with his purity, with
his commands, our will clashlng with
his will, the finite dasing against the
infinite. the frail against the puisSant,
the created against the creator. Ii H.
coo musicians, with flute and corneta
piston and trumpet and violoncello,
the hautboy and trombone and all the
wind and stringed instruments that
ever gathered in a Dasseldor 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 rasplng
sounds, they could not make such q
pandemonium as that which RACES
in a sinful soul when God listens to
the play of its thoughts, passions and
emotions-discord, lifelong oiscord,
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
songtress in New York, and another
S525 to hear her in Boston, and an
other $3.50 to hear her in Providence.
Fabulous prices have been paid for
sweet sounds, but far more has been
paid for discord. The Crimean wal
cost $1,700, 900, 900 and the American
civil war over 50, SOC, 900, 900, and the
war debts OF professed Christian ma
tons are about SIS, 600, 900, 600. 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. Discord! Discord!
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
night when he was several times over
powered with sleep, and artists say
they can tell the places in the music
E:srhtiere 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 il
will awaken and be more grandly rem
dered by the evening stars of the
worlds existence than by the morning
stars, and the vespers will be sweetel
than the maths. The work OF al
good men and women and of all gooc
churches and all reform association:
help to bring the race back to the origi
nal harmony. The rebellioUs heart Il
be attuned, social life to attuned
commercial ethics to be attuned, in
ternatiorality to be a!tuned, hemis
shers to be attuned.
In olden times the caoristers had {
tuning fork with two prongs, and they
would strike it on the back Of pew o.
music rack and put it to the ear anc
then start the tune. and all the othel
voices would join. In modern orches
ira the leader has a complete instru
ment rightly att1ned and he sound:
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 sounc
it over ,ain until all the keys are
screwed to concert pitch, and the dis
cords melt into one great symphony
and the curtain hoists, and the bator
taps, and audiences are raptured with
Schumann's paradise and the Peri,
or Ressini's ''Stabat Mater" or Bach'E
sMagnifcat" in D.
Now our world can never be attunec
by an imperfect instrument. Even g
Cremono would not do. Heaven ha:
ordained the only instrument, and i
is made out Of the wood Of the cross,
and the voices that accompany it are
imported voices, cantatrices Of the frs
Christmas night, when heaven sere
naded the earth with "Glory to Goo
in the highest, an on earth!peace, gooc
will to men," Let we start too far of
and get lost in generalities, we hac
better begin with ourselves, get oul
own hearts and lives in harmony with
the eternal Christ. Oh, for his al
mighty spirit to attune US, to chorc
our will with his will, to modulateoul
life and bring US into unison with al
that is pure and self sacrificing and
heavenly: The strings Of our nature
are all broken and twisted. and the
bow is so slack it cannot evoke any
thing mellifuous. The instrumen
made for heaven to play on has beer
roughly twanged and struck by inhu
ences worldly and demoniac. 0 mas
ter hand of Christ, restore this spill
and fractured and despoiled and un