th," on the upward climb toward the Light.

"Possessions," with the great majority of individuals, mean something
outward, in space and time; what we have, and, for the time hold, rather
than what we are. The average idea of enjoyment is something altogether
superficial and transient. It is found, or supposed to be found, in
variety of sensations, emotions and feelings; in ringing the changes on
these, till vitality fails, disillusion or satiety supervenes, and old age
or death closes the play. Often the appetite remains, when vitality fails,
and Faust rejuvenated, would run the same gauntlet again. The pity of it
is that thousands of these victims of either satiety or Tantalus seem
never to dream that there are other values, or anything else, or better,
in life.

And yet there is not one of these faculties, capacities and powers that is
useless, or, in itself, evil or degrading. They are, one and all,
resources of the Individual Intelligence; tools for the day's work;
materials for the building of the Temple; whereas, they most frequently
are made the motive and the aim of life. They are means to a higher end,
and not the end itself.

Without the latent passions, emotions, and feelings, man would be a mere
mechanism. If all were mind, or mere intellect, there could be neither the
creation nor the appreciation of beauty. Every work of art would be
soulless; music might amuse the intellect by intricate chords and
variations, like a colorless kaleidoscope, but it could never touch the
heart nor elevate the soul.

Music and art, in the highest sense, through consonant vibrations in us,
open the doors and windows of the soul, put us in touch and tune with the
Infinite, and _then_, the real harmony begins. We live for the time in
another world and return with a sigh and recover the bated breath, as
though we had seen a vision beyond words. Music is an agent, a talisman, a
means to an end. It strikes in us chords that lie at the foundation, the
combinations that unlock the doors, and the "Imprisoned Splendor" wings in
and out like the doves of Hesperides.

Blunt the passions, the feelings and the emotions by over-indulgence, by
vice and dissipation, and the royal guests desert the banquet hall, the
doors of the soul creak on their hinges; and in place of the "music of the
spheres" you have a devil's dance, and the orgies of despair!

_Does it pay?_ It all depends on _use_. Here lie the resources, the real
possessions of