effect that he entranced whatever came within hearing of his music.  Men and animals listened, enraptured; the wildest beasts of the forests lost their ferocity; the birds of the air were drawn toward him; the fishes rose to the surface of the water and remained immovable; the trees ceased to wave their branches; the brook retarded its course and the wind its haste; even the mocking echo approached stealthily, and listened with the utmost attention to the heavenly sounds.  Soon the women began to cry; then the old men and the children also began to cry, and the girls and the young men—­all cried for delight.  At last Vainamoinen himself wept, and his big tears ran over his beard and rolled into the water and became beautiful pearls at the bottom of the sea.

“Several other musical gods, or godlike musicians, could be cited; and, moreover, innumerable minor spirits, all bearing evidence that music is of divine origin.

“True, people who think themselves more enlightened than their forefathers, smile at these old traditions, and say that the original home of music is the human heart.  Be it so.  But do not the purest and most beautiful conceptions of man partake of a divine character?  Is not the art of music generally acknowledged to be one of these?  And is it not, therefore, even independently of myths and mysteries, entitled to be called the divine art?”

THE RELATION OF MUSIC TO WORK AND BLESSEDNESS.

“Give us,” says Carlyle, “O, give us the man who sings at his work!  Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness.  He will do more in the same time—­he will do it better—­he will persevere longer.  One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music.  The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres.  Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance.  Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous—­a spirit all sunshine—­graceful from very gladness—­beautiful because bright.”

Again, this author says, who had so much music in his heart, though not of the softest kind—­rather of the epic sort: 

“The meaning of song goes deep.  Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us?  A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!”

The late Canon Kingsley certainly conceived much of the height and depth, and length and breath of song, when he wrote: