G

ΤΟ

H. C. T.

THE STEADFAST FRIEND

WHO

THESE MANY YEARS

HAS WALKED BESIDE ME

WITH A SONG

THROUGH DARKEST NIGHT

PREFACE.

THE nights of human experience are long, "Until the day-dawn and the day-star arise in (the) heart." Happy he who can say, "In the night His song shall be with me," and "I will praise His Name with a song," or, who "Instructed in Song," remembereth Him "who giveth songs in the night,” and finds himself "Compassed with songs of deliverance." Then, verily, "Calling to remembrance (the) song in the night,” “shall this song be sung,—‘Trust ye in the Lord forever!'"

The heart may, indeed, sing its songs with the sadness of the nightingale, instead of the joyousness of the lark, through its nights of Darkness, Heaviness, Temptation, Humiliation, Poverty, Captivity, Fear, —even all through the "House of (its) Pilgrimage"-it may sing its Song of Remembrance, with a tear in every note, through Sickness, Bereavement and Death, but "The Song of Songs," and "The New Song," will wipe out the tear. These can only be sung now, in imagination of heavenly choirs, chanting the praises of Him who is "the Light of the world." We may here

But

"Sing of His dying love,
Sing of His rising power,
Sing how He intercedes above,
For those whose sins He bore."

"There shall each raptured tongue
His endless praise proclaim,
And sweeter voices tune the song,"

than the most ravishing notes on earth.

So when we speak of “The Song of Songs,” and "The New Song," we know that we shall only tune the voice to these when the Night songs are past. The sweet singer of Israel does indeed say, “Sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvelous things ❞—meaning a song of deliverance; also, "He hath put a new song in my mouth" (of praise), but St. John, from his vision in the Isle of Patmos, declared, "They sang as it were a new song before the throne," but no man could learn that song save they which were redeemed from death! Then, dawns

"That light which hath no morning,

That knows nor moon nor sun,

The light so new and golden

The light that is but One!"

IN the selection of these songs, the highest standard of literary excellence has not been considered to the exclusion of those which have the merit of reaching the popular heart; the object being to pierce with a joyous note the darkness of the night.