I know there are special temptations around this matter. Vain and selfish ones--whispering how much better a certain song suits your voice, and how much more likely to be admired. Faithless ones--suggesting doubts whether you can make the holy song 'go.' Specious ones--asking whether you ought not to please your neighbours, and hushing up the rest of the precept, 'Let every one of you please his neighbour _for his good to edification_' (Rom. xv. 2). Cowardly ones--telling you that it is just a little too much to expect of you, and that you are not called upon to wave your banner in people's very faces, and provoke surprise and remark, as this might do. And so the banner is kept furled, the witness for Jesus is not borne, and you sing for others and not for your King. The words had passed your lips, 'Take my voice!' And yet you will not let Him have it; you will not let Him have that which costs you something, just _because_ it costs you something! And yet He lent you that pleasant voice that you might use it for Him. And yet He, in the sureness of His perpetual presence, was beside you all the while, and heard every note as you sang the songs which were, as your inmost heart knew, _not_ for Him. Where is your faith? Where is the consecration you have talked about? The voice has not been kept for Him, because it has not been truly and unreservedly given to Him. Will you not now say, 'Take my voice, for I had not given it to Thee; keep my voice, for I cannot keep it for Thee'? And He will keep it! You cannot tell, till you have tried, how surely all the temptations flee when it is no longer your battle but the Lord's; nor how completely and _curiously_ all the difficulties vanish, when you simply and trustfully go forward in the path of full consecration in this matter. You will find that the keeping is most wonderfully real. Do not expect to lay down rules and provide for every sort of contingency. If you could, you would miss the sweetness of the continual guidance in the 'kept' course. Have only one rule about it--just to look up to your Master about every single song you are asked or feel inclined to sing. If you are 'willing and obedient,' you will always meet His guiding eye. He will always keep the voice that is wholly at His disposal. Soon you will have such experience of His immediate guidance that you will be utterly satisfied with it, and only sorrowfully wonder you did not sooner thus simply lean on it.