Songs of praise the angels sang,
Heaven with hallelujahs rang,
When JEHOVAH’S work begun,
When He spake, and it was done.

Songs of praise awoke the morn,
When the Prince of Peace was born:
Songs of praise arose, when He
Captive led captivity.

Heaven and earth must pass away,
Songs of praise shall crown that day;
God will make new heavens, new earth,
Songs of praise shall hail their birth.

And can man alone be dumb,
Till that glorious kingdom come?
No;—the Church delights to raise
Psalms, and hymns, and songs of praise.

Saints below, with heart and voice,
Still in songs of praise rejoice;
Learning here, by faith and love,
Songs of praise to sing above.

Borne upon their latest breath,
Songs of praise shall conquer death;
Then, amidst eternal joy,
Songs of praise their powers employ.
         James Montgomery


Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.  Psalms 66:16

Consider the ends which a believer should propose in the discharge of this duty (“of communicating Christian experience”).  The principal end he should have in view when he declares his experience is the glory of that God, who hath dealt so bountifully with him.  He would surely have the Lord exalted for his faithfulness and goodness to him; he would have it published, that the name of the Lord might be great; that sinners might know that his God is faithful to his word; that he hath not only engaged to be “a present help in time of need,” but that he hath found him in reality to be so.  As he knows the enemies of God are ready enough to charge him with neglect of his people, because of the trials and afflictions they are exercised with; so he would, in contradiction to them, declare what he hath found in his own experience, that in very faithfulness he afflicts those that are dearest to him.  And with what lustre doth the glory of God shine, when his children are ready to acknowledge that he never called them out to any duty but his grace was sufficient for them:  that he never laid his hand upon them in any afflictive exercise, but he, at the same time, supplied them with all those supports which they stood in need of?  I say, for Christians thus to stand up, on proper occasions, and bear their experimental testimony to the faithfulness and goodness of God, what a tendency hath it to make the name of the Lord, who hath been their strong tower, glorious in the midst of the earth.....How may we blush and be ashamed, that we have so much conversation in the world and so little about what God hath done for our souls?  It is a very bad sign upon us, in our day, that the things of God are generally postponed; while either the affairs of state, or the circumstances of outward life, or other things, perhaps, of a more trifling nature, are the general subjects of our conversation.  What! are we ashamed of the noblest, the most interesting subject?  It is but a poor sign that we have felt anything of it, if we think it unnecessary to declare it to our fellow Christians.  What think you?  Suppose any two of us were cast upon a barbarous shore, where we neither understood the language, nor the customs of the inhabitants, and were treated by them with reproach and cruelty; do you think we should not esteem it a happiness that we could unburden ourselves to each other, and communicate our griefs and troubles?  And shall we think it less so, while we are in such a world as this, in a strange land, and at a distance from our Father’s house?  Shall we neglect conversing with each other?  No; let our conversation not only be in heaven, but about spiritual and heavenly things. 
                                                                                                          Samuel Wilson (1703-1750)