The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

A tone is to be avoided in public, either in prayer or preaching, because it generally is distasteful; and a whining tone, that some use, [is]Broken off at the margin; no copy survives. truly very ridiculous. But a melancholy musical tone doth really help in private, whether in private prayer, reading, or soliloquy; not because religion is a melancholy thing (for it is far from it),At this point JE deleted the following words: "It raises to a pleasure clear above laughter, that is of an ex[ternal]." This thought probably suggested the writing of the next entry. but because it stills the animal spirits and calms the mind and fits it for the most sedate thought, the clearest ideas, brightest apprehensions and strongest reasonings, which are inconsistent with an unsteady motion of the animal spirits. Wherefore, this may be a rational account why a melancholy air doth really help religious thoughts; because the mind is not fit for such high, refined and exalted contemplations, except it be first reduced to the utmost calmness.