Praise should always follow answered prayer—as the mist of earth's gratitude rises when the sun of heaven's love warms the ground.

Has the Lord been gracious to you? Has he inclined his ear to hear your desperate cry? Then praise him as long as you live! Let the ripe fruit fall back on the soil that gave it life. Deny not a song to him who has answered your prayer and given you the desire of your heart.

To be silent over God's mercies is to incur the guilt of ingratitude. It is to act as basely as those nine lepers who were healed of their disease but never returned to thank the healing Lord. Listen! To forget to praise God is to refuse to benefit ourselves. Praise, like prayer, is one great means of promoting the growth of the spiritual life. It helps to remove our burdens, to excite our hope, to increase our faith!

Praise is a healthful and invigorating exercise—it quickens the pulse of the believer and nerves him for fresh enterprises in his Master's service. And here's something else: to bless God for mercies received is also the way to benefit our fellow men. "The humble shall hear thereof and be glad." Others who have been in like circumstances will take comfort if we can say, "Oh! magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together; this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him."

Weak hearts will be strengthened, and drooping saints will be revived as they listen to our songs of deliverance. Their doubts and fears will be rebuked as we teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. They too shall sing in the ways of the Lord when they hear us magnify his holy name.

Praise is the most heavenly of Christian duties. The angels pray not, but they cease not to praise both day and night. And the redeemed, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, are never weary of singing the new song: "Worthy is the Lamb!"