Various powers used in God's service.
"As wall the singers as the players on instruments." This expresses admiration of the services and ceremonies in connection with Jehovah's temple; and it suggests the thought that Divine worship ought to be made in every way delightful. But another thought is suggested by the marked distinction made between the "singers" and the "players." It is that the gifts and endowments of men are very various, but whatever may be their variety, they can all be taken up into the service of God and the service of God's people. Some can sing; then encourage them to sing. Some can play; then use their skill in playing. Find. what a man can do, and accept, for God, just the service he can render.
I. THE REMARKABLE VARIETY OF HUMAN GIFTS. Examine them first as simply human gifts. Poetry, eloquence, art, science, government, do but, in the large, represent the thousandfold lesser forms of endowment which fit men for their varied places in life. Yet in common everyday life there is a place and a work forevery one. Show that this includes kinds of gifts with which we may have no personal sympathy, such as mimicry, satire, humour, etc. Then examine those particular gifts which were granted to the early Churches—tongues, prophecy, interpretation, etc. Bring out that while each man has much in common with his fellows, each man also has something special to himself, something which constitutes his individuality. In the line of the use of that speciality will be found to lie his life mission.
II. THE POSSIBLE USE FOR HUMANITY OF ALL HUMAN GIFTS. There is a danger of religious people unduly limiting the service of humanity. Sometimes, in an exclusive spirit, pious persons speak as if there were no real service to humanity save that which their religion sanctions. We may hold that all conceivable endowments may be sanctified, and ought to be sanctified, by being used for God—consciously in God's service. But we had better be more generous in our thinking, and say that everything that helps lift a human burden, cheer a human soul, brighten a human life, relieve a human strain, or perfect the human brotherhood, is the service of God. Some gifts bear a character, or are so small in measure, that men think of them as the one talented man thought of his talent. But he thought wrongly, and so do they. In God's earth there is nothing that has not its use. In God's world of men there is no gift without an answering sphere. Singers and players shall both be there,—R.T.