WHY DON'T YOU SING?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 18, 1902

WHY DON'T YOU SING?

The Bible Echo.

Vocal minstrelsy takes its place among the very best of mental and physical tonics. Disease and despair both lose hold upon the heart that can constantly affirm, “I will sing and give praise.” Instrumental music exercises a wonderful influence over the soul of man. Inspired by its strains, the soldier rushes to the battle, and the weary marcher forgets his weariness; but vocal music has a still more salutary effect.

While singing, a greater portion of air is inhaled than in ordinary breathing. This occasions a quickened circulation, and provides better purified blood for the system. Then, too, the mental sky always brightens under the inspiration of holy song, and the haunting apparitions of evil fall back into their midnight of darkness.

Solomon tells us that a “merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Every fiber of the body shares in the exhilaration occasioned by a hearty laugh, so that the happy heart has a continual feast. With some this pleasant disposition is natural, but those with whom it is not natural can obtain much of its benediction by cultivating a habit of singing.

Holy song is a lubricant that oils the wheels of life; it is a panacea that will cure many diseases, and ease almost all. It bestows both mental and physical inspiration, and makes life's sky, from every standpoint, look brighter. Paul and Silas sang in the prison dungeon at Philippi. Christ joined in singing a hymn with His disciples just before entering Gethsemane. How much darker these scenes might have been without the inspiration of holy song we cannot tell.

God has placed music in His creation. The birds sing; the trees clap their hands; the floods lift up their voice on high. Surely, then, the heart of man, the being for whom God has done so much, should be glad. Fungi and disease grow in the damp and darkness; roses grow and blossom in the sunlight. Soul-sunlight is just as necessary to the development of spiritual life as the natural sunlight is to the development of physical life.

Singing should not be regarded so much as a pastime. It should be adopted as both a physical and a spiritual exercise. Paul speaks about “singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Try his method, and you will find God's blessings great enough to fill all the years of life with the divinity of holy song.

There is no place where singing is more appropriate, or where its blessings are more beneficial, than in the home. Passion, anger, moodiness of mind, and crossness of temper give way before it as the mists pass away before the rising sun. There is something more than mere romance in a mother singing her child to sleep. Other things being equal, that is the most potent sedative that she could employ. Yes, sing your children to sleep, and sing them up again in the morning. Sing them through their labors in the day, and thus make life bright and holy. Satan cannot endure the triumphant strains of Christian song. So, though you may not always feel like it, sing; sing always, and if your own life is not brightened thereby, the cheering strains may chase some of the shadows from another life. Try it and see! The dark spirit of madness left the mind of Saul when David tuned his harp to the sweet songs of Israel.