The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-04


 season when nature is displaying her glories in greatest abundance the preach
 CT chooses as a theme for his sermon the beauty of things audible and visible and contrasts 1t with the higher beauty
 which comes to those whose lives are In
 harmony with the divine life. me text Is Eeclesiastes III, Il. He hath made ev- erythlng beautiful in his time"
 The soiomonic writings are often ep- igrammatie in style. Like priceless jew els cut and polished by the lapidaries and
 collected In caskets, irrespective or size
 or color, his verses as verbal gems are clustered into chapters with but little at- tempt at consecutive arrangement. lh- deed Kilng Solomon for the most part
 seems to me to be like a writer or notebooks. In the kings judgment hall or on the street or upon the hillsides under the blue dome of the sky, when a great thought is divinely inspired with in his brain he jots that down in mem orandum. Then at the end or the day or the week or the month or the year he collects these different thoughts, ire speetive of their logical sequence, into chapter or book, and has the court stem ographer write them out again Tn luli. In other words, King Solomons verses for the most part arc 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 tWeh- tieth chapter The verse Is the car. The chapter os the freight train. They are Of ten as unconnceted as the definitions or Webster's dictionary. They change tnelr subjects very often. They are like mug gets of gold sometimes found by the Australian miners In the dust by the roadsldes or in the river beds, entirely separated from any gold veins. They gre like great round boulders of rock im- bedded in the sands. These powder Vers- es in a glaciel age have been carried by the Ice from afar and have found rest Ing place amid entirely different ele- ments from those among which they were created
 The modern critics tell US that King Solomon did not write the book of Eccle- siastes that its style ana diction belong to later date. It appears to me, hoWeV- CT. that it's tone and it's depressing re- frain are characteristic of man who lea such A. life of ease and self-indulgenece es Solomon led and that at the end or Y satlated with pleasure and study as ne must have been, 1t was precisely the kind of book that would have come rom his pen and the conclusions uttered in that book lust such as would be likely to be reached by such a man who, hav- ing strayed from God, was disappointed and dissatisfied with his life. In the ab- sence therefore, of definite knowledge I shall assume that the first verse Of the book indicates him as the author, "The son of David, King in Jerusalem.
 The Law of Sequence.
 But though King Solomon was not, as a rule, a connected writer, yet in the book of Eccleslastes he makes an exception to his usual custom. In this third chap ter, for example, there Is clear sequence No man can interpret my text arlgnt unless he uses the words, He hath made everything beautiful In his time" as g glorious climax to the ten verses which preoede them Solomon is here enunciat- ing the mighty law of sequence He is the events of human life as an army. Each even must have It's right position. In the language of the chapter, he says, There Is time to he born and time to die" There Is a time for a cradle and a time when the wood of that cradle should be changed Into a coffin lid. There is time to plant and time to reap that which is planted" The blow and the sickle cannot have the rust rubbed off their faces at the same time. There Is a time to weep and a time to laugh" That means that q joke or a cachination at 8 funeral is a discord. A tear and a sob at corona ton are also out of place. A wedding march is never played in minor key neither is tho Battle Hymn of the Re- public" sung to the accompaniment Of the Dead March" from "SauP' nor Is Christmas carol imprisoned behind the musical bars of a Mozart's requiem. There Is a time to love and time to late" There is time when the angel ,f mercy should extend the open palm of forgiveness as well as a time when he clnched fist of justice must defend he weak and fight mortal combat ,yer the prostrate forms of innocence and 'ectitude.
 Then, after the author of my text has Iung the changes of the Gospel liar monies of Sequence"--the meadow lands md upon the mountain top, In sea and m land, by cradles and by opened graves turing the time when the doves of peace 8 lowering over man, and during the ime when the black raven of war is tapping his wings above bloody battle ields-King Solomon generalizes all his statements in one great conclusion. He avs, All the different heart beats of oy and sorrow, life and death, peace nd conflict, hope and dispair, have their purpose to serve, if they only come to nan in the right way and at their ap- ointed seasons" For God hath made verything beautiful in its time" This , the keynote of Christianity. Man in his inful state Is monster of ugliness. ,lemish on creation-a discord, but man edeemed, is haloed with divine beauty, md, as. Ralph Waldo Trine has said. He is in tune with the infinite" He becomes part of the universal harmony md his thought are in spiritual sym netry with the thoughts of God.
 coIerdee's Definition.
 We find an analogy for mans spiritual beauty in the painters brush and the Irtists' easel According to Samuel Cole idge the English poet and literary critic, he true definition of beauty" is multi ude in unity" When standing before . great picture like that of Leonardo da yinci's Last Supper" or Murrillos Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" or greatest picture. his Sistine Madonna we find that there the many ights and shadows. the gold and the liver and the green and the yellow and he blue and the saffron and the violet md the purple, all blend in one common purpose Thousands, perhaps tens Of of times Michael Angelo, with his brush may have touched the wall In the Vatican where today Is seen his Last Judgment" But not one of all of those thousands of times when he laid on the paint did he do so without hav- Ing one great Idea in his mind. "Perfec- ton is composed of many trifles' wrote he, ''but perfection in art is not a trifle.' A great picture is always 'multitudes of different colors in blending unity" That unity Is the cause of beauty when seen upon the canvas of the masters of old end the masters of the present day.