all proceed from self and fellow-men, alive or dead?
Then why blame God?

"Why am I here?" we cry, "to suffer all these pains, and my consent
not asked? A poor, sad puppet dancing to a tune I know not the
rhythm of. Where is my recompense? And where my wages? I will
take all I can of what is offered here, and give no thanks! It is but
my scant due for all my wretchednesses!"

O foolish man! so timid of all future possibilities of bliss that he
must grasp and burn himself with such delights as he finds here!
And equally mistaken and small-minded man who thinks that all our
Mighty God will have to offer us hereafter are crowns, damp clouds
and mists, and endless hymns! Such little hearts are far away indeed
from knowing the _magnitudes of Life._

O wretched man! why this distrust? Hast thou created even thine
own palate and digestion? Hast thou invented any of those fond
delights that so enslave thee now? Hast thou thyself devised the
means wherewith to satisfy the longing of thy _creature_ for the
sweets of life? They were provided thee; all that thou hast created is
misuse! Thou art but a perverted thing!--a crooked tool of self, a fly
drowning in the honey that it sought too greedily to own!

O wretched, wretched man! so cloyed with sweets of earth thou
canst not raise thy head to see the sunrise out beyond the world, and
know true sweets! How many are the tears wept over thee by the
great heart of God!

* * *

Since coming into this new way of living, the more I come into
contact with music the more I sense a mysterious connection
between melody--the soul--and her _origin._ Alone out of all the
sciences and arts, music has no foundation upon anything on earth.
There is no music in nature until the soul, come to a perfect
harmony within herself, brings out the hidden harmony in all
creation, and, turning it to melody within herself, returns it to her
Lord in song, whether by outward instrument or inward love.

The soul, indeed, would seem to have come out of a life of infinite
melody and to have dropped into an existence of mere contrary and
vexing time-beat.

Who can by any means account for the variety of passions excited
within him by the mere difference of the spacing, time, or rhythm of
music? In my new condition of living I notice that the soul throws
out with most disdainful impatience music that was formerly
beautiful to my mind and heart (or my creature); and certain types of
flowing cadences (ver