ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



is an interesting revival of the ancient prac- 

 tice of using music to heal disease, mental 

 and physical. Without intending to bring 

 any charge of plagiarism against the recent 

 methods of treatment, one may call attention 

 to the fact that David successfully used the 

 same method with Saul. When the soul of 

 that mercurial king was disquieted within 

 him, David, with his harp, accomplished 

 what an indefinite number of soft answers 

 might have failed to do. The Greeks, also, 

 successfully treated rheumatism with a con- 

 cord of sweet sounds ; and it is recorded that 

 Terpander, with his harp, quelled an insur- 

 rection in Sparta. 



The advantage of substituting music for 

 the soft answer can easily be shown. In us- 

 ing the latter method, it may be difficult to 

 modulate the pitch and quality of the words 

 used. An unlucky inflection on an appar- 

 ently insignificant word of an otherwise per- 

 fect soft answer may entirely destroy its 

 power to heal. On the other hand, a pensive 

 melody on a harp or guitar would not be sub- 

 ject to the hazards of accent which thought 



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