p. 849 | DO YOU SING AT HOME?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 31, 1901

DO YOU SING AT HOME?

THERE is perhaps no pleasanter pastime in the family circle than the singing of sacred song. Many a home where there is little of beauty, or ease, or luxury, is made pleasant by “thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” If there be joy in the heart and music on the tongue, many rough places in life are smoothed and made plain, many dark spots are brightened and made cheerful.

Those families who know nothing of sacred song miss some of the purest pleasures that fall to the lot of mortals. Family prayer is a duty and privilege, but family praise is none the less so, and there is nothing that binds hearts more closely to the home than those “songs which mother sang;” and old tunes in which the voices of parents and brothers and sisters join, form a bond of union which unites hearts when mountains rise and oceans roll between them. Sometimes the wayward son, wandering in a far-off land, hears the song his mother sang, and is charmed by its music to know and serve his mother’s God.

Careful and melodious singing in the home fits persons for singing elsewhere, especially if persons are taught to sing correctly, gently, and tenderly, and without much instrumental accompaniment. Then the hymns learned by the young linger long in memory, a precious heritage against days of darkness and of sorrow.

Let parents set the example of song, and children will be sure to follow. Take time now and then, and enjoy an evening of sacred song. Let the voice of rejoicing be heard in the tabernacle of the righteous, and prayer and praise ascend to the throne of God. Let each child have his hymn book, and he will learn to prize it next to the Bible, and will from it gather many precious truths which will go with him to life’s latest hour. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth God. Let us have more praising and less murmuring, more songs and fewer complaints. Instead of fretting because of evil doers, let us pray; instead of repining at our lot, let us leave our burden at the cross, “and bear a song away.”

“Hast thou no words? Ah! think again; Words flow apace when you complain, And fill your fellow creatures’ ears With the sad tale of all your cares.

“Were half the breath thus vainly spent, To heaven in supplication sent, Your cheerful song would oftener be, ‘Hear what the Lord has done for me.’”

—Selected.