SINGING FROM THE HEART.
By Edison Driver
One evening last fall as twilight deepened over a lakeside summer resort, there rang out on the clear night air the familiar strain,— “Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.” Instantly a gay crowd of men and women on the veranda hushed their noisy chattering, and listened. They had heard the sweet voice often before. They knew the singer was only a poor, untrained fisherman’s girl, but what of that! There was something so tender and yearning in her voice that it compelled their silence and reverence, and even their tears. It was singing from the heart. But scarcely were the last words sung when a famous singer in a pleasure boat on the lake took up the same hymn and sent its familiar lines floating shoreward. They on the veranda listened a moment to the sweet, bell-like voice, then shook their heads in sad disapproval. She might be a gifted singer, some one said, but the power to render truly that divinest hymn of trust did not lie in her proud and self-sufficient heart. “From the heart” is the secret of every great song and the way of every great singer. We can not learn too soon that, no matter what our words may be, it is still the voice and tone of the inner life which weighs most in the field of our influence. The voice of the heart can touch other hearts, and tell them things their proud, vain minds will not hear. O,3singer and speaker, to-day tune thy heart to the Infinite, and let it teach men of thy God. Fresno, Cal. EDISON DRIVER.