Then follow directions as to the meaning of the blowing of the trumpets. One trumpet alone called the princes; two trumpets called the entire tribe together; an “alarm” gave the signal for the camps to go forward, and so on. So, you see the ancient Hebrews used trumpets much as we today use the army bugle. The trumpets mentioned as one of the earliest of all instruments called the people to religious ceremonies too; it announced festivals, the declaration of a war, the crowning of a king, proclaimed the jubilee year, and gave warning of the anger of God. One instrument has come down to our times and is still used in the Hebrew temple services. This is called the _shofar_ and is usually a ram’s horn on which two tones may be blown. Probably, as the ram was one of the animals of sacrifice, they used its horn as a sacred instrument. This shofar is 5,000 years old, at least. It is sounded in all the synagogues of the world on the Jewish New Year and on the Day of Atonement in memory of the wanderings of the Children of Israel. When the twelve tribes, after their wanderings in the wilderness, had settled down in Palestine, they gave music a most important place in their daily life. Samuel, the last and most respected of the judges, built a school of prophecy and music. Here it was that young David hid himself to escape the persecutions of Saul. You remember that David is called the Great Musician and he gave us many of the Psalms, the most beautiful religious verse in the world. How much it would mean to us if we knew the music David sang to these songs! In spite of the fact that the music in which they were originally sung has been lost, the Psalms have been an inspiration to all composers of religious music throughout the ages. David learned so much at Samuel’s school that he created a most beautiful musical service for the temple, which is the basis of the one used today in Jewish synagogues (temples). The number that were instructed in the songs of the Lord was two hundred, four score and eight (288). There were in all four thousand, including assistants, students, players of instruments and the two hundred and eighty-eight professional singers. All of these people did not perform at one time; for the ordinary services they used twelve male singers, twelve players on instruments,—nine harps, and two players of the psaltery and one of cymbals. Women were not allowed to sing in the temples but they were a part of the court and sang at funerals and at public festivities and banquets. The great Jewish historian, Josephus, tells us that Solomon had two hundred thousand singers, forty thousand harpists, forty thousand sistrum players and two hundred thousand trumpeters. This is hard to believe, but as everything belonged to the kings in bygone days, probably this was only Solomon’s musical directory.