Music--there is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful enough, but music is more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts as words do, it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a language by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as divine, just as blessed. Music has been called the speech of angels; I will go farther, and call it the speech of God Himself. The old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen, 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 of order, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of law. _Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. Facing Realities. May 12. The only comfort I can see in the tragedies of war is that they bring us all face to face with the realities of human life, as it has been in all ages, giving us sterner and yet more loving, more human, and more divine thoughts about ourselves, and our business here, and the fate of those who are gone, and awakening us out of the luxurious, frivolous, and unreal dream (full nevertheless of hard judgments) in which we have been living so long, to trust in a living Father who is really and practically governing this world and all worlds, and who willeth that none should perish. _Letters and Memories_. 1855. Street Arabs. May 13. One has only to go into the streets of any great city in England to see how we, with all our boast of civilisation, are yet but one step removed from barbarism. Is that a hard word? Only there _are_ the barbarians round us at every street corner--grown barbarians, it may be, now all but past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet save, for God wishes us to save them. . . . Do not deceive yourselves about the little dirty, offensive children in the street. If they be offensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels do always behold the face of your Father which is in heaven." _All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. Fellowship of Sorrow. May 14. How was He, The blessed One, made perfect? Why, by grief-- The fellowship of voluntary grief-- He read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls, As we must learn to read it. Lady! lady! Wear but one robe the less--forego one meal-- And thou shalt taste the core of many tales, Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs, The sweeter for their sadness. _Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v. 1847. Heaven and Hell. May 15.