MUSIC OF NATUKE. 227 



Insects may be the last in the scale of animated beings capa- 

 ble of making music to their Maker's praise, and the strains of 

 some of them may be the lowest in the scale of sounds percep- 

 tible to us. But if, with all true poets, we can hear sounds of 

 worship in the murmuring sea and running waters, and in 

 every tree played on by the breath of heaven if we have an 

 ear for these, and the like harmonies, for " the harp of uni- 

 versal nature, which is touched by the rays of the sun, and 

 whose song is the morning, the evening, and the seasons," if 

 for these, the voices of things inanimate, we are gifted with a 

 perceptive ear and receptive heart, can we refuse to reckon as 

 music the softest vibration of the tiniest insect's wing, because 

 it is an audible token^of happy existence, and, as such, a 

 hymn of gratitude to the Giver of the boon of life ? 



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