Connecticut western news., 1904-09-01
Ca(nnage Sermon
By Rev. Frank De Witt Tal nh D.

preacher chooses as a theme for his sermon the beauty of things audible and visible and contrasts 1t with the higher beauty which comes tos those whose lives are in harmony with the Divine life. The text Is Eccleslastes iii, II, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time"
 The Solomonic writings are often epigramklath 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 ters, with but little attempt at con secut1ve 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 hills1des under the blue dome of the sky, when great thought is dfvinely 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 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 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 Websters Die tionary. They change their subjects very often. They are like nuggets of gold sometimes found by the Austra- Han 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 powder verses in glacial age have been car ried by the ice from afar and have found a resting place amid entirely diff ferent clements from those among which they were created.
 The modern critics tell us that King Solomon did not write the book of Be cleiastes; that its 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 life of ease and self in- dulgence as Solomon led, and that at the end of it. satiated with pleasure and study, as he must have been, it was precisely the kind of book that would come from his pen, and the con cfusions uttered in that book just such as would be likely to be reached by a man who, having strayed from God. was disappointed and dissatisfied with his life In the absence, therefore, of definite knowledge I shall assume that the first verse of the book indicates him as the author, '"rhe son of David, king in Jerusalem
 The Law of Sequence.
 But, though King Solomon was not, as n rule, 6 connected writer, yet in the book of Ecclesiates he makes an excep- }tion to his usual custom. In this third chapter, for example, there Is clear sequence No nan can interpret my text alright unless he uses the words "He hath made everything beautiful in his time," as a glorious climax to the ten verses which precede them. Solomon Is here enunciating the mighty law Sf sequence. He Is marshaling the eveifts of human life as an army. Each event must have its right posi- ton. In the language of the chapter, he says, sThere is a time to be born and a time to die" There is time for a cradle and time when the wood of that cradle should be changed into coffin lid. There Is a time to plant and a time to reap that which Is plant ed" The blow and the sickle cannot have the rust rubbed off their faces at the same time "There Is time to weep and time to laugh" That means that a joke or cachinnaton at funeral Is a discord. A tear and sob at coronation are also out of place. A wedding march is never played in minor key; neither is the Battle Hymn of the Republic sung to the accompa- niment of the Dead March" from Saul" nor is a Christmas carol i'm prisoned behind the musical bars of Mozart's requiem. "There is time to love and a time to hate" There is a time when the "angel of mercy" should extend the open palm of forgiveness as well as a time when the clinched fist of justice must defend the weak and fight q mortal combat over the pros trate forms of innocence and rectitude.
 Then, after the author of my text has sung the changes of the Gospel Har monies of Sequence"-the meadow lands and upon the mountain top, in sea and on land, by cradles and by open ed graves, during the times when the dove of peace is lowering over man, and during the time when the black raven of war is Tapping his wings above bloody battlefelds- Solo mon 0eneralizes all his statements in one great conclusion. He practically says, "All the different heart beats of joy and sorrow, life and death, peace and conflict, hope and despair, have their purpose to serve, If they only come. to man in the right way and at theirN appointed seasons" For God "hath made everything beautiful in it's time" This is the keynote of Chris
 
 monster of ugliness, blemish on crea- tiop, discord, but man redeemed. is haloed with divine beauty, and, as Ralph Waldo Trine has said, He Is in tune with the infinite" He becomes part of the universal harmony, and his thoughts are in spiritual symmetry with the thoughts of God.
 CoIeridge's Definition.
 We find an analogy for mans spir- itual beauty in the painters brush and el.artist's easel. According to Samuel Coleridge, the English poet and literary critic, the true definition of "beauty" Is multitude in unity" When standing before a great picture like that of Leonardo da Vincis "Last Supper" or Murillo's Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" or RaphaePs greatest picture, his Sistine "Madon- na," we find that there the many lights