ageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's
sonnets in the darkness.

He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love
to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else
praises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on
His head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is
something. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to
stick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and
forsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in
the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from
the heart.

I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the
excellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you
their use.

It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because
it will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and
had some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you
whistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the
natural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like
singing to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble,
we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with
difficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song." We have begun to
sing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing." That is
about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an
evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the
evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can
begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants
sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in
the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say
he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he can
sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to
purge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and
you will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as
long as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your
fears.

Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your
companions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with
you, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us,
that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful
dark place, and terrible