To give thanks to the Lord.
Praise in song
(for a Choir Service):--King David was the greatest innovator in worship of whom Scripture contains a record, for he introduced instrumental music to guide popular singing in worship, and he formed the whole tribe of Levi into a guild of various branches, one of which was employed in the musical services of religion. There had always been in Israel a tendency to song. At the digging of a well, at the winning of a victory, at the issue of a great deliverance the people sang, not men only, or priests only, but men and women. But music was not in the stated worship of God till David organised it. It was this organisation that Solomon found ready to his hand. The purpose of the music, the purport of the song, was praise for the mercy of the Lord: “to give thanks unto the Lord, because His mercy endureth for ever.” “I am burdened with the sense of the mercies of God,” said the dying Norman Macleod. That was the burden of Israel and Judah in the old time (2 Chronicles 20:21; Ezra 3:11). That was the National Anthem of Israel. There is none like it yet, not even Luther’s, though that comes next to it. It is a hymn we might sing in eternity. There is something to stir the heart in the mercy of God. There were many things that stirred the heart of Israel, but this one was always the chief. We know very little about the hymns or music of the early Church. Everything that was sung that was not a psalm seems to have been called a hymn. Paul enjoins “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” as a means of instruction and teaching. Thus it was at the German Reformation. Thus it was at the Scottish Reformation, when almost all the learning was of rhyme; psalms, beatitudes, creeds, and commandments--they rhymed and sang them all. The Gnostic heretics had, through their hymns, such hold on the heart, that he was the best champion of orthodoxy who could write a rival hymn. The Arians also swayed the mobs of the great cities of the East by their processions and their songs, and their catches sung at meal hours, so that Ambrose and Chrysostom had to counteract them with hymns that were charged with the very truth of God and Christ and the Holy Ghost. To you members of the choir I would say, “You sing not as pagans sang; your music is not a refined amusement, or a toy, but a consecration to God of a great gift with which the Lord of the talents has entrusted you. It is given you that by its use you may lead us up to God. It is not congregational worship if some one sings in the presence of the congregation. The heart of the people must go with the singer. There is not much more worship in hearing some one sing than there would be in seeing some one paint. But there is a strange power in music--above all in the music of the human voice--to awaken emotion. Some of the grandest preaching I have ever heard was the singing of a hymn with a purpose. It was not worship, but it was wonderful teaching, and it led to worship--worship of the highest kind. Now triumph will be in the music that moves us to noble deeds. When one Greek orator spoke, men said, ‘What a noble speech!’ but when the other spoke men looked on each other, grasped their swords and said, ‘Let us march on Macedon.’ And if you use your gift to the highest purpose it will have for its result that we will arise and go to our Father.” Basil said the Holy Ghost was the author of Christian music. This lifts up the central purpose beyond mere notation; the Holy Ghost takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us. (Prof. Charteris, D. D.)