I M. G. Pearw,
ST. MARK 403
curtains and filled the sacred place ; so, while we sing, the doors of the sanctuary move upon their hinges and He enters whose presence brings to us fulness of life and joy.
When friends are few or far away,
Sing on, dear heart, sing on ! They rise to sing who kneel to pray,
Sing on, dear heart, sing on ! The songs of earth to heav'n ascend, And with adoring anthems blend, Whose ringing echoes ne'er shall end;
Sing on, dear heart, sing on ! ^
2. Let us sing as we go about our tasks. The carpenter does better work if he whistles as he drives his plane. The Puritan girl in The Minister's Wooing, humming the old Psalm tunes, might well make her lover think of heaven and angels. The soldiers, a hundred locked to every one of the great guns, vainly sought to climb the steep ascent of St. Bernard until the flutes struck up La Marseillaise, " Ye sons of freedom, wake to glory ! " We also lift our burdens the more easily, meet our sorrows the more resignedly, perform our services and tasks the more joyously, when God's praises are ringing in our hearts.
Fill Thou my life, 0 Lord my God,
In every part with praise. That my whole being may proclaim
Thy being and Thy ways.
Not for the lip of praise alone,
Nor e'en the praising heart, I ask, but for a life made up
Of praise in every part.
Praise in the common words I speak,
Life's common looks and tones ; In intercourse at hearth and board
With my beloved ones.
Not in the temple crowd alone,
Where holy voices chime, But in the silent paths of earth,
The quiet rooms of time,
* V. J. Cbarlesworth.
404 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
So shall no part of day or night
From sacredness be free, But all my life in every step
Be fellowship with Thee.^
3. Let us sing in times of trouble. God giveth His people " songs in the night." Paul and Silas at Philippi, their feet in the stocks, their backs tingling with the pain of recent scourging, made the dungeon ring with song, insomuch " that the prisoners heard them." It was a most unusual sound. Those dark corridors had rung with oaths and curses many a time ; but who were these that could uplift at midnight the melodies of thanksgiving ? " The prisoners heard them."
IF Martin Luther, in the darkest times, used to say to Melanchthon, his fellow-labourer in the Eeformation, " Come, Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth Psalm, and let them do their worst." One of Longfellow's lyrics on American slavery has for its subject " The Slave singing at Midnight " —
Loud he sang the Psalm of David !
He, a Negro and enslaved,
Sang of Israel's victory.
Sang of Zion, bright and free.^
^ I have heard of a young mother, whose means of livelihood
was her gift of song, and once when her only child was lying ill at home she had to sing for bread before a gaping crowd, and refuse an encore that she might escape from the footlights and get back to that suffering bedside. When she got there it was only to hear that there was no hope. This was the last request of her dying child — " Mother, sing to me ! " Can you think of anything more terrible than that midnight agony ? In the very presence of the shadow of death the brave little woman gathers her baby to her breaking heart and paces that death-room, singing—
I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men. How He called little children as lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with them then.
The child was going home, the mother was to live, but it was she and not the child who sang the death-song of Jesus, and sang it well for love's sake.^
i H. Bonar. =• 0. Jeidaa. » K. J. Campbell.
ST. MARK 405
Thou Heart ! why dost thou lift thy voice ?
The birds are mute; the skies are dark; Nor doth a living thing rejoice ;
Nor doth a living creature hark;
Yet thou art singing in the dark.
How small thou art; how poor and frail;
Thy prime is past ; thy friends are chill ; Yet as thou hadst not any ail
Throughout the storm thou liftest still
A praise the winter cannot chill.
Then sang that happy Heart reply:
"God lives, God loves, and hears me sing;
How warm, how safe, how glad am I, In shelter 'neath His spreading wing, And then I cannot choose but sing.''^
4. Let us sing as we meet Death. The Christian can rejoice even in the near approach of death, and under the dark shadow of bereavement. John Bunyan's " Miss Much -Afraid " " went through the river singing." Dr. Thomas Guthrie, when he was dying, asked those who were about him to sing him " a bairn's hymn." John Angell James was accustomed to read Psalm ciii. at family prayer on Saturday evenings ; but on the Saturday of the week in which his wife had died he hesitated for a moment, and then looked up and said, "Notwithstanding what has happened this week, I see no reason for departing from our usual custom of reading Psalm ciii. ; ' Bless the Lord, 0 my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name.' " ^