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the native language of Heaven, as it is the natural and untaught expression 
of man upon the earth. 
Yes; in Heaven the angels sing the praises of God—there the 
empyrean vault is resonant with the accents of joyous melody, with the 
sweet concord of many sounds, mingled with the joyful harpers playing 
upon their harps; as St. John tells us, in the Apocalypse, that he saw the 
four-and-twenty Ancients with harps in their hands, and heard the voice 
of a mighty multitude, that sang a new canticle to the sound of those 
harps; and again, he heard the multitude of the Blessed singing together 
the Canticle of Moses, the servant of God.* 
With St. Augustine, therefore I must say: “Happy were I, and 
forever happy, if, after death, I were deemed worthy to hear the melody 
of those songs, which the blessed citizens of Heaven, and the legions of 
the celestial army, sing forever in praise of the Eternal King.” 
“Strains of purest harmony, 
Hark! in liquid numbers flow, 
Sounds which earth-born melody 
Never uttered, ne’er did know! 
All the music of the spheres— 
All the thoughts of joy and love— 
All the tones of hopes and fears, 
Are but echoes, faint and low, 
Of the choirs in realms above.” 
— Weninger . 
iButtercup^. 
A plant of the genus Ranunculus or crow-foot, particular R. bulbosa, 
with bright yellow flowers; also called golden-cup and king 1 s-cup; butter¬ 
cup , the cuckoo-bud of Shakespeare. 
^Apocalypse, xiv, xv, 
