his nurse with him, a woman who could only blunder out the harsh and inharmonious notes of some country ballad, he was obliged to be contented with her music, and even found relief from it. A continuance of the music for ten days cured him entirely, without the assistance of any other remedy, except once taking some blood from his ankle, which was the second time the operation had been performed on him during his disorder." To the power of music, however, his cure was attributed.

A work in the early part of the last century on this subject cites a number of curious facts, which are adduced as proof that the most serious disorders, after having resisted every remedy, have at length yielded to the charms of music, and that the most acute pain has been mitigated by listening to pathetic melody. The author asserts, that in cases of hemorrhage, the most astonishing effects have been observed.

M. de Mairan, in the "History of the Royal Academy of Sciences, France," speaking of the medicinal power of music, says that "it is from the mechanical involuntary connection between the organs of hearing and the consonances excited in the outward air, joined to the rapid communication of the vibrations of these organs to the whole nervous system, that we owe the cure of spasmodic disorders, and of fevers, attended with a delirium and convulsions."

Dr. Bianchini says he has witnessed many instances in which music has been applied with great effect in cases of acute and chronic diseases. Dr. Leake says that music produces its salutary effects by exciting a peculiar sensation of the nerves of the ear, which communicate with the brain and general nervous system. He says that its sovereign influence over the mind

cannot be disputed; that it is balm to the wounded spirit, exalts the soul above low-thoughted care, and wraps it in elysium.

Dr. Cox relates a case of the power of music on insanity, in which "great benefit was obtained in the cure of a soldier by the music of a fife; but the fife evidently produced its effect by breaking through the train of disordered ideas, and introducing new associations from the recollection of past scenes in which he was warmly interested."

If such cures as I have described in the foregoing incidents have been obtained from music, then it behooves us to think why still greater cures may not be obtained when the use of music with colour added to it becomes a thoroughly scientific method of healing. Music has been truly described as the mother of sympathy, and the handmaid of religion, but it will never exercise its full effect, as the Emperor Charles VI. said to Farinelli: "Unless it aims not merely to charm the ear, but to touch the heart," and when it does this, it is ready to go a step farther and heal the mind of grief and sorrow, and the body of disease and pain. And this is the high and holy office that music will eventually fill. The composer is yet to come who shall devote his life solely to the production of music which shall free mankind not only from the burden of sins, but from physical infirmities as well. Said Sudermann: "The greatest and highest thing one possesses in this world is his life melody. A certain strain that ever vibrates, that his soul forever sings, waking or sleeping, loudly or softly, internally or externally. Others may say: 'His temperament or his character is so and so.' He only smiles, for he knows his melody, and he knows it alone." Said Lanier:

"Music means harmony, harmony means love, love means God." If we can get closer to God through living melody and harmony in a thoroughly rhythmic way, then surely God must become to us the real Source of health and power. There is a bread of life which comes to us from the soul of music that is more necessary to our well-being than physical bread. Said the Master: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And he also said: “God is love." And love is both the fundamental and the dominant note of being. He who is inspired by the Spirit of love will not only be able to receive his melody from the Soul of Life, but will also be able to impart of his divine melody and harmony to others. The emotion of love sets up a rhythmic vibration in the soul and moves out in never-ending rhythmic waves to influence and inspire the souls of others. Love is without beginning or ending, and when one is able to consciously draw from the Source of Love and then express that love through the singing or the speaking voice, the inner vibration continues ever after to make itself felt.

"He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”

The loving vibrations of a Jesus or a Buddha as expressed through their lives while they lived on earth are without doubt the greatest inheritance that the world is in possession of to-day. Because in all the years that have elapsed since they lived in this world,

the loving vibration set up by them has gone forth from them and has united itself with the love in the hearts and minds of those people who have become attuned, as it were, to the love that lived in the Jesus and the Buddha, a love that lives in a far greater way in the world of the present than it has ever done in the past, a love that is being expressed in thought, in word, and in deed by all those who believe in them.

Music filled with the love spirit has greater power to stir man's highest emotions than anything else in life. Such music can colour and give power to the life of the one who becomes attuned to it, and this love and power can be transmitted as was the love and power of the Jesus and the Buddha to the lives of others, and the melody flowing from it can be produced, not only through the singing voice, but the speaking voice as well; so that the whole life may come to find full and complete expression through love and beauty in tone and colour, and thus man may become a true revelation of God on earth.

CHAPTER XX

ALIVE TO COLOUR AND MUSIC

"And the slender sound

As from a distance beyond distance grew
Coming upon me-O never harp nor horn,
Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand,
Was like that music as it came; and then

Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam,

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive,

Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed
With rosy colours leaping on the wall;

And then the music faded, and the Grail
Past, and the beam decay'd, and from the walls
The rosy quivering died into night."

-TENNYSON.

"A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,

Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm

The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm."

-BYRON.

WHILE I am optimistic in my belief that music and colour will eventually become the greatest agents for the healing of the sick and the sorrowing, yet I in no way underestimate the difficulties to be overcome before such a desired end can be fully realised. There are so many things to be taken into consideration, so much that at first cannot be otherwise than experimental that time must necessarily elapse before any system can be perfected. The music and colour used to heal one man might prove, not only of no benefit to another, but irritating, and, possibly, harmful, in