1 Lady Dilke, The Book of the Spiritual Life, 180. ^ Tennyson, The Ancient Sage.
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ii6 SONGS IN THE NIGHT
I.
The Song.
1. Shakespeare says that music is "the concord of sweet sounds." But it is more, just as poetry consists of something more than harmonious words. Music is the language of the unseen and eternal; and song is the accord of the heart with this, the utterance of eternity. Of course there are evil songs, which show that the heart of the singer is in accord with the dark nether world of evil; but good and holy songs show that the heart of the singer has caught the strains and chords of the bright, blessed world of God and the holy angels.
^ All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song ; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls ! The primal element of us ; of us, and of all things.^
^ You must have the right moral state first, or you cannot have the art. But when the art is once obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes the moral state out of which it arose, and, above all, communicates the exultation to other minds which are already morally capable of the like.
For instance, take the art of singing, and the simplest perfect master of it (up to the limits of his nature) whom you can find — a skylark. From him you may learn what it is to " sing for joy." You must get the moral state first, the pure gladness, then give it finished expression ; and it is perfected in itself, and made com- municable to other creatures capable of such joy. But it is incommunicable to those who are not prepared to receive it.^
^ Music, heard by my inner ear, accompanied me at all times and during all my walks, and I created for myself a singular test by which to know if a piece of music was beautiful or not. There was a spot, a bench under a tree by the side of a very small waterfall, where I loved to sit and " think music." Then, going in my mind through a piece of music such as Beethoven's " Adelaide," or the Cavatina from " Der Freyschiitz," I could imagine that I heard it in the air surrounding me, that the whole of nature sang it, and then I knew that it was beautiful. Many pieces would not stand that test, however hard I tried, and those I rejected as indifferent.^
' Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship.
^ Ruskin, Lectures on Art, § 66 ( Works, xx. 73).
^ Life and Letters of Sir Charles Haiti, 10.
JOB XXXV. lo 117
2. Love is the inspirer of the highest song. When our heart is enlarged we can run in the way of God's commandments. Life breaks out into music and light. The obedience which the law demands, which at first promised only to bring constraint and a gloomy darkening of life's joy, is the spring of happiness and peace. In the joy of reconcilement we are in accord with God's will for us, and are in tune with the whole universe. "We know the service which is perfect freedom. The house of our pilgrimage is made glad with music. Life laughs back its radiance in the sunshine of God's smile.
^ Fix this in your mind as the guiding principle of all right practical labour, and source of all healthful life energy, that your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may be only the praise of a shell or a stone ; it may be the praise of a hero ; it may be the praise of God. Your rank, as a living creature, is determined by the height and breadth of your love ; but, be you small or great, what healthy art is possible to you must be the expression of your true delight in a real thing better than the art.^
3. God is the giver of the song. No man can make a song in the night himself; he may attempt it, but he will find how difficult it is. It is not natural to sing in trouble, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name" ; for that is a daylight song. But it was a Divine song which Habakkuk sang when in the night he said, " Although the fig-tree shall not blossom," and so on, " yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." Methinks, on the margin of the Eed Sea, any man could have made a song like that of Moses, " The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea " ; the difficulty would have been to compose a song before the Eed Sea had been divided, and to sing it before Pharaoh's hosts had been drowned, while yet the darkness of doubt and fear was resting on Israel's hosts. Songs in the night come only from God ; they are not in the power of man,
^ For when God has all that He should have of thy heart, when thou art wholly given up to the obedience of the light and spirit of God within thee, to will only in His will, to love only in His love, to be wise only in His wisdom, then it is that everything