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To me it seems highly unreasonable and I should be but too apt to censure the wisdom of the gods, if I were convinced that they use fire, and water, and wind, and clouds, and rain for the preservation and welfare of some and for the detriment and destruction of others, while at the same time they make no use of living creatures that are doubtless more serviceable to their ends than bows are to the Scythians or harps or pipes to the Greeks.

Fiddles was for play-actors and theaytres. "And theaytres is there," said Cæsar, indicating with his foot one flag on the kitchen-floor, "and hell flames is there," he added, rolling his toe over to the joint of the next one. Grannie began to plead. What was a fiddle if you played the right tunes on it? And what was harps but fiddles in a way of spak-ing?

We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. Some had harps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some had nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one young fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying that in his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says "Will you hold it for me a minute?" Then he disappeared in the crowd.

His voice seems to sound across the gulf of death, in accents soft and sweet as the harps of angels, "I am the resurrection and the life." And the "life to come" is no other than the perfection of the Christian's life which "now is" a life of love a life of peace, purity, and praise a life of incessant activity in the service of the blessed God.

Think of his crime, think of its aggravations from God's mercies to him, from his official position, from his past devotion. Remember that this cruel voluptuary is the sweet singer of Israel, who had taught men songs of purer piety and subtler emotion than the ruder harps of older singers had ever flung from their wires.

Yes, there have been such living harps among us; beings, the tones of whose sentiments, the melody of whose emotions, the cadences of whose sorrows, remain to thrill, and delight, and humanize our souls. They seem born for others, not for themselves. Alas, for the hapless companion of my early youth! Alas, for him, the pride of his country, the friend of my maturer manhood!

"I hear I hear something far, far away," he whispered. "It is the harps of angels announcing the presence of the Lord," said the wife. "Be quite still now, Halvor." Then she nestled very close to him something she had never done before in the presence of others. "Ah!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Now I have heard it. It spoke so loudly that it was as thunder in my ears.

"From its prison-house, it sang of the green fields and fragrant winds, the blue violets that starred the meadow, the strange, singing harps of the marsh grasses, and the wonder of the sea. A good fairy happened to be passing, and she stopped to hear the song. She became so interested that she wanted to see the singer, so she opened the door.

It was a very fine show. In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of the wail known to later centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other the queen had the composer hanged, after dinner.

I once saw the last act in all its integrity and with six harps accompanying the famous trio.