DON'T SING TOO MUCH

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 11.

DON'T SING TOO MUCH.

WE are satisfied that one cause of the feebleness of conviction and the surface results in our meetings is, we sing too much. Too much singing tends to destroy conviction. This is true to some extent when the most solid and serious hymns are sung; but more especially is it true when the singing is of the light, unsubstantial kind that is so popular nowadays. President Finney, whose large experience and clear insight into spiritual operations entitle his opinion to great weight, says:—

"A great deal of singing often injures a prayer-meeting. The agonizing spirit of prayer does not lead people to sing. But if I know what it is to travail in birth for souls, Christians never feel less like singing than when they have the spirit of prayer for sinners. Singing is the natural expression of feelings that are joyful and cheerful. The spirit of prayer is not the spirit of joy. It is a spirit of travail and agony of soul, supplicating and pleading with God with strong sighings, and groanings that cannot be uttered. This is more like anything else than it is like singing. I have known states of feeling where you could not distress the people of God more than to begin to sing; it would be so entirely different from their feelings. Why, if you knew your house was on fire would you just stop and sing a hymn before you put it out?

"How would it look when a building was on fire, and the firemen are all collected, for the firemen to stop and sing a hymn? It is just about as natural for the people to sing when exercised with a spirit of prayer. When people feel like pulling men out of the fire they do not feel like singing. I never knew a singing revival to amount to much. Its tendency is to do away with all deep feeling."

Few things will sooner arrest the deep work of the Spirit on the conscience and heart than for a company of thoughtless, prayerless young people to sing lustily the frivolous hymns and tunes that so well accord with their own non-spiritual case.—St. Louis Christian Advocate.