In the course of a work on glorified bodies, which St. Paul calls spiritual bodies, the author, passing from the domain of sight to that of hearing, has been led to examine the mystical meaning of the various instruments enumerated in the psalms: strings, trumpets, organs, cymbals, flutes.

Now let the apple of thine eye cease! says the Book of Lamentations (2, 18).

The texts last cited are themselves an invitation to cross over from the domain of sight to that of hearing, from the domain of proportion to that of modulation, and from that of values to that of tonalities. Nothing in this world, says Saint Paul (1, Cor., 14, 10) is without voice. Even soulless things, be they flute or dulcimer, if they give not a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped and what is harped? And if the trumpet give forth an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? Likewise you, except you utter by the tongue plain speech, that tongue which the Holy Spirit for evermore has put into our mouth, so that we might at last express ourselves, yield to the loving invitation (Arise, speak, my beloved, let me hear thy voice—as I have taught thee to hearken unto mine—for it is sweet). Canticle. The soul is become entirely praise and the daughter of music, after the phrase of Ecclesiastes (10, 2, 4), of that song, that resonant and melodious breath-control or neum (pneuma) of which the craving came to her at night (Job, 5, 10). Entirely is she herself the harp, in herself covering the gamut, and by octave upon octave the means of attaining from the lower to the higher. Arise, says David (Ps., 56, 9) Arise my glory, psaltery and harp. The flutes and psaltery make sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both (Ecclesiastes, 40, 21). He hath disposed ascensions in his heart, says the eighty-sixth Psalm.