Songless Birds

“Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” Psawm li. 12.

THERE is a most arresting difference between a singing bird and a bird which has no song. Even fine feathers offer no adequate compensation for the absence of song. I have sat in a wood which was thronged with semi-tropical birds in gayest attire, and it seemed like Westminster Abbey at other times than the hours of worship, when it is crowded with moving visitors but the organ and choir are silent and there is no sound of praise. A wood with a singing thrush in it, or a robin, or a nightingale, is transformed. The gloomy twilight becomes a dim, religious light, and the wood becomes a temple. A bird with very plain feathers is a very fascinating creature if it is endowed with exquisite song. Yes, song is very captivating. I have known a country road thronged with people after darkness had fallen, and they had gathered to hear a nightingale sing.

And all this leads me up to a very challenging word about religion. Does not the religious life become fascinating only when it has found a song? Does not piety become arresting only as it breaks into praise? ’ Does not spiritual devotion become alluring only when duty is changed into love and harsh obedience ripens into joy? If religion has no joy it has no vital contagion. If it has no joy it has no glow in its own heart, and it lacks the power to kindle fire in others. A joyless religion is like a dripping wood, with a drenched bird or two on its branches, but with no quickening song at the heart of it.

And such was the plight of this Psalmist. He had lost his song. He had lost the joy of the divine communion. The fire of devotion had somehow smouldered, and everything was dull and gloomy. When he sought the Lord there was nothing of the lover’s thrill in his going, but rather the mood of a slave turning again to his monotonous task. He went moodily. There was no eager sprightliness in his steps, because there was no joy in his heart. His prayers were devoid of praise. His petitions did not rise like a lark to the accompaniment of ‘‘melody divine.” Somehow he had lost his song, and all his ways were heavy.

It had not been always so, In other days his joy in God had set his steps to music. “I will sing of mercy and of judgment!” “Twill sing aloud of Thy righteousness!’’ ‘J will sing praises unto the Lord!” *“O come, let us sing unto the Lord a new song!’? He had known what it was to crowd God’s gates with thankful praise. He would begin the day with singing. ‘‘ My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord.”? And snatches of song mingled with all the labour and interests of the day. Aye, even God’s statutes had become his songs in the house of his pilgrimage.

How had he lost his song? Who knows how songs are lost? Perhaps by sheer thoughtlessness. Perhaps by neglect. More likely by sin. Joy and sin can never be in concord. When we are in ways of sin we may manufacture something which looks like joy, but it is not the real thing; it is only galvanised, it is not vital. It is not the joy of the Lord. We cannot keep the birdnote when our purity is lost. Joy flees away in fear when a loathsome thing comes into the soul.

And so this man turns to the Lord for the purity he had lost, that in recovered purity he might find the lost joy. ‘‘ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.’ That is the first step to the restoration of joy. First the lost health, and then the lost song. The chords will vibrate again when they have been cleansed and refined by God’s holy grace. And where else can we turn for cleansing but to the Fountain of holiness? And we do not turn in vain. The way to the Fountain is cheery with words of promise. ‘‘ They shall return, and come with singing!” ‘“They shall rejoice even with joy and singing; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’’ When the Lord has taken from our souls everything that defileth, we are a new creation — “Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come!”