Apart from its importance in religious service, music had a deep significance in the lives of the ancient Hebrews. They attributed to it peculiar curative and inspirational powers. We know how David used it to relieve the illness of Saul, and even Elias employed it to stimulate the spirit of prophecy. It was the accompaniment of all important occasions, both sad and joyful. There is frequent mention in the Bible of triumphal songs and of the use of trumpets in war. Bridal processions were accompanied by music (Jer. vii), and it also seems to have been commonly employed at funerals (2 Chron. xxxv _et al._). Love songs were not unknown to the Hebrews (Isaiah v; Psalm xiv), nor were they lacking in songs of a convivial and lightly popular nature. They welcomed itinerant musicians as warmly as the courts of Europe in the chivalric period welcomed the Troubadours. Indeed, from what we know of them, they seem to have been an intensely music-loving people, and this fact can but add to our regret that we are unable to determine the exact nature of their music or what the proportions were to which they had developed it as an art. III Regarding Egyptian music, the evidence at our disposal is fuller and more suggestive, though the deductions to be drawn from it are hardly less conjectural. It consists mainly of monumental sculptures, mural paintings, and fragments and nearly preserved specimens of actual instruments. There are also many fugitive references to Egyptian music in the works of Herodotus, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and other Greek writers. Between the earliest representations of Egyptian musical instruments and the visits to Egypt of Herodotus and Plato stretches a period of nearly two thousand years--time enough for such a complete revolution to have taken place as to render valueless the references of the Greek writers as throwing light on Egyptian musical culture at the noontide of Egypt’s greatness. Yet such a revolution almost certainly did not take place. During two thousand years, as we may see from the monuments, Egyptian art stood practically still. The system of hereditary castes was an impermeable barrier to the advance of culture. Caste conventions were elevated to the dignity of sacred laws and innovations were regarded almost as sacrilege. Herodotus, who lived in Egypt, tells us that the musical profession was strictly hereditary and had been so for uncounted centuries. No one, for instance, who was not of a family of professional singers, he asserts, could adopt the profession of a singer. Considering the rarity of good voices, even where such restrictions do not exist, one can easily imagine that vocal performances in Egypt were not stimulating. Nor could Egyptian music be very rich in inspiration, if we are to accept the following admiring tribute of Plato, who had lived thirteen years in Egypt, and who, like other Greek philosophers, was himself a musical scholar.