Life thoughts, gathered from the extemporaneous discourses of Henry Ward Beecher. By one of his congregation.

LIFE THOUGIlTS. 29
You never can have congregational singing, if
that is all you have. Unless you have singing in
the family and singing in the house, singing in the
shop and singing in the street, singing every where,
until it becomes a habit, you never can have congregational singing. It will be like the cold drops,
half water, half ice, which drip in March from some
cleft of a rock, one drop here and another there;
whereas it should be like the August shower, which
comes ten million drops at once, and roars on the
roof.
I like to see people sing when they have to stop
in the middle of the verse and cry a little. I like
such unwritten rests and pauses in the music.
When hymns come to the house of God all redolent of home associations, then singing will be what
it ought to be - social Christian worship.
A HELPING word to one in trouble is often like a
switch on a railroad track -but one inch between
wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity.
MANY men carry their conscience like a drawn
sword, cutting this way and that, in the world, but
sheathe it, and keep it very soft and quiet, when it