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When the poet Carpani inquired of his friend Haydn how it happened that his church music was always so cheerful, the great composer made the following reply: "I cannot make it otherwise; I write according to the thought I feel. When I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen, and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I praise him with a cheerful spirit." Religious life and relations are often wrongly toned through the influence of the strange sentiment that what is acceptable to God must be a strain and trial to us. This strange sentiment rests on the mistaken idea that matter itself is evil, and, as man is material, his work is, at every cost, to master and crush the material element. This is at the root of Hinduism and Buddhism; it inspires the hermit; it fills nunneries and monasteries; and it explains the bodily austerities of good men, such as Henry Martyn, who walked about with pebbles in his shoes, as if to make himself miserable and so make himself acceptable to God. This notion is far more widespread, and far more mischievous, than is usually recognized. Constantly we find good people suspecting themselves of insincerity, or quite sure that something dreadful is going to happen, if they find themselves happy, and really enjoying their religious duties and exercises.

I. TO FEEL THE PLEASANTNESS OF PRAISE IS A SIGN OF CHERISHING RIGHT THOUGHTS OF GOD. What he recognizes is the good of his creatures, and that includes their happiness. And this characteristic of God is in no way affected by the fact that man has sinned. God is still anxious for his happiness, and helps him out of the bondage of sin that he may be happy. Long faces, miserable tones, depressing anticipations, and exaggerated and constant wailings about sin, do not honor or please God. He wants even his sinful children to find and feel the pleasantness of the praise they offer to him. It is comely to enjoy our religion.

II. TO FEEL THE PLEASANTNESS OF PRAISE IS A SIGN OF CHERISHING RIGHT THOUGHTS CONCERNING OURSELVES. There are times when a man ought to cherish a due sense of his sinfulness and sin, but to he always wailing over it nourishes formality and insincerity. A man is a sinner, but he is a child of God nevertheless, and does well to remember his sonship oftener than his sin. - R.T.

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KJV: Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.

WEB: Praise Yah, for it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and fitting to praise him.