“There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will.  Music goes on certain rules and laws.  Man did not make these laws of music; he has only found them out; and, if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly:  all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds:  The greatest musician in the world is as much bound by those laws as the learner in the school; and the greatest musician is one who, instead of fancying that because he is clever he may throw aside the laws of music, knows the laws of music best, and observes them most reverently.  And therefore it was that the old Greeks, the wisest of the heathens, made a point of teaching their children music; because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of laws.  And, therefore, music is fit for heaven; therefore music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven; a life of melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other and with God.

“If thou fulfillest the law which God has given thee, the law of love and liberty, then thou makest music before God, and thy life is a hymn of praise to God.

“If thou act in love and charity with thy neighbors, thou art making sweeter harmony in the ears of our Lord Jesus Christ than psaltery, dulcimer, and all other kinds of music.

“If thou art living a righteous and a useful life, doing thy duty orderly and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ than if thou hast the throat of the nightingale; for then thou, in thy humble place, art humbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody by which God made the worlds and all that therein is, and, behold, it was very good, in the day when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new-created earth, which God made to be a pattern of his own perfection.”

    The minstrel’s heart in sadness
      Was wrestling with his fate;
    “Am I the sport of madness,”
      He sighed, “and born too late?”

    “No gifts are ever given,”
      A friendly voice replied,
    “On which the smile of Heaven
      Does not indeed abide.

    God’s harmony is written
      All through, in shining bars,
    The soul his love has smitten,
      As heaven is writ with stars.

    The major notes and minor
      Are waiting for their wings;
    Pray thou the great Diviner
      To touch the secret springs.

    He may not give expression
      In any ocean-tide,
    But music, like confession,
      Will waft thee to his side;

    Where thou, as on a river,
      The current deep and strong,
    Shalt sail with him forever
      Into the land of song.”