Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-11-14
CalmaQe
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talma9e. d. ID.


sermon the beauty Of things audible
and visible and contrasts it with the
higher beauty which comes to those
whose lives are in harmony with the
Divine life The text is Ecclesiastes
Ill, il. He hath made everything
beautiful in his time
. The Solomonic writings are often
epigrammattc in style Like priceless
Jewels cut and polished by the lapi-
daries and collected in caskets. ire
.spective OF size or color, his verses as
verbal gems are clustered into chap
tiers, with but little attempt at con-
secutive arrangement. Indeed, King
Solomon for the most part seems to
me TO be like a writer of notebooks.
In the kings judgment hall or on the
street or out upon the hillsides under
the blue dome of the sky, when a great
thought IS divinely inspired within his
brain, he jots that thought down in
memorandum. Then at the end of the
day or the week or the month or the
year he collects these different
thoughts, irrespective of their logical
sequence, into a chapter or a book
and has the court stenOgrapher write
them out again in full. In other words,
King SOlomOn's verses for the most
part are like freight cars that can be
sidetracked or uncoupled from one
car and attached to other cars. Each
verse stands out as a distinct entity.
An average verse is as appropriate in
the sixth chapter of Proverbs as in
the twentieth chapter. The verse is
the car. The chapter is the freight
train. They are often as unconnected
as the definitions of Webster's Die
tionary. They change their subjects
very often. They are like nuggets Of
gold sometimes found by the Austria
Ian miners in the dust by the road
sides or in the river beds, entirely sep
arated from any gold veins. They are
like great round powders of rock i'm
bedded in the sands. These bowlder
verses in a glacial age have been car
rled by the ice from afar and have
found a resting place amid entirely diff
ferent elements from those among
which they were created.
The modern critics tell us that King
Solomon did not write the book of Ec-
cleiastes; that it's style and dictiOn be-
long to later date. 1t appears to me,
however that its tone and its depress-
ing refrain are characteristic of a man
who led such a life of ease and self in
diligence as Solomon led, and that at
the end of it, satiated with pleasure
and study, as he must have been, 1t
was precisely the kind Of book that
would come from his pen, and the con-
illusions uttered in that book just such
as would be likely to be reached by q
man who, having strayed from God,
was disappointed and dissatisfied with
his life In the absence, therefore, of
definite knowledge 1 shall assume that
the first verse of the book indicates
him as the author, 1.-THE son of David,
king in Jerusalem"
The Law of Sequence.
But. though King Solomon was not,
as q rule, a connected writer yet in the
book of Ecclesiates he makes an eXcep-
ton to his usual custom. In this third
chapter, for example, there is clear
sequence. No man can interpret my
text Alright unless he uses the words
8f'He hath made everything beautiful
IN his time" as a glorious climax t
the ten verses which precede them
Solomon is here enunciating the might.
law of sequence. He is marshaling tn
events of a human life as an army
Each event must have it's right pos
ton. In the language of the chapter
he says. There is a time to be Dor
and a time to die" There is a time fo
a cradle and a time when the wood c
that cradle should be changed into
coffin lid. There is q time to plan
and time to reap that which is plan
ed" The plow and the sickle cannC
have the rust rubbed off their faces 6
the same time. There is a time
weep and time to laugh" That mean
that a joke or a exclamation ut
funeral is a diScoTd. \ tear and so
lat a coronation are also out of plac
a wedding march is never played in
minor key; neither is the Battle Hymn
of the Republic" sung to the accomp:
niment of the Dead March frOl
Saul" nor is a Christmas carol in
prisoned behind the musical bars of
love and a time to hate" There is
time when the angel Of mercy" shout
extend the open palm of forgiveness
well as a time when the clinched rs
of justice must defend the weak an
fight a mortal combat over the pro,
trate forms of innocence and rectitud,
Then, after the author of my text ha
sung the changes of the Gospel Ha
monies of Sequence"-the meade
lands and upon the mountain top, in Sc
and on land. by cradles and by ope
ed graves. during the times when Il
dove of peace is lowering over ma
and during the time when the bla'
raven of war is Tapping his winl
above bloody battlehelds-King Sol
mon generalizes all his statements
bne great conclusion. He practical
saws, "All the different heart beats
joy and sorrow, life and death, pea
and conflict, hope and despair, ha'