438 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



tion, this at least can be entered into, that all the children of 

 Adam and Eve could unite in a common song. Of all the or- 

 gans of the body, therefore, the ear is the one which, though for 

 its present gratification it is beholden solely to the passing mo- 

 ment, can with the greatest confidence anticipate a wider domain 

 hereafter. 



" In consonance with that home in eternity for which the Ear 

 expectantly waits, to it is promised the earliest participation in 

 the life to come. This divinely authenticated fact appears to 

 have made a profound impression on men of genius of all tem- 

 peraments since the days of our Saviour's presence upon earth. 

 Many of you must be familiar with that beautiful hymn of the 

 Latin Church, the ' Dies Irce' in which the solemnities of the 

 last judgment and the sound of the trump of doom, are echoed 

 in mournful music from the wailing lines. Sir Walter Scott 

 translated this sacred song. Goethe has introduced a striking 

 portion of it into the cathedral scene in Faust, where the 

 Tempter assails Margaret. Martin Luther's hymn reads like an 

 echo of it. After all, it is itself but the echo and paraphrase of 

 passages in the New Testament ; and Handel, when he com- 

 posed the ' Messiah,' went to the original for those words which 

 he has set to undying music. From these words we learn that 

 the summons to the life to come will be addressed first to the 

 Ear, and it first shall awake to the consciousness of a new exist- 

 ence : ' for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised 

 incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' . . . 



"When I think of all that man's and woman's hand has 

 wrought, from the day when Eve put forth her erring hand to 

 pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree, to that dark hour when 

 the pierced hands of the Saviour of the world were nailed to the 

 predicted tree of shame, and of all that human hands have done 

 of good and evil since-, I lift up my hand, and gaze upon it 

 with wonder and awe. What an instrument for good it is ! 

 what an instrument for evil ! and all the day long it never is 

 idle. There is no implement which it cannot wield, and it 

 should never in working hours be without one. We unwisely 

 restrict the term handicraftsman, or handworker, to the more 

 laborious callings ; but it belongs to all honest, earnest men and 



