Lord, Why Was I A Guest?

How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
"Lord, why was I a guest?

"Why was I made to hear thy voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"

'Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

We long to see thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing thy redeeming grace.


Listen to the melody here: http://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=296

The Church

I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of Thine abode,
The church our blessed Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood.

I love Thy church, O God.
Her walls before Thee stand,
Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
And written on Thy hand.

If e’er to bless Thy sons
My voice or hands deny,
These hands let useful skills forsake,
This voice in silence die.

Should I with scoffers join
Her altars to abuse?
No! Better far my tongue were dumb,
My hand its skill should lose.

For her my tears shall fall
For her my prayers ascend,
To her my cares and toils be given
Till toils and cares shall end.

Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heavenly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows,
Her hymns of love and praise.

Jesus, Thou Friend divine,
Our Savior and our King,
Thy hand from every snare and foe
Shall great deliverance bring.

Sure as Thy truth shall last,
To Zion shall be given
The brightest glories earth can yield
And brighter bliss of Heaven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuYBKBFAkVs

A Breed Apart

I am convinced that every child should have an English bachelor uncle. Married uncles (American or British) are usually someone else's father and tend to have a reasonable, responsible, well-adjusted way of looking at life. But a bachelor uncle is like Mr. Wiggs in the Mary Poppins book (remember the laughing scene?), and Captain Flint in Swallows and Amazons, and Great Uncle Matthew in Ballet Shoes. There is a touch of Bertie Wooster and Edward Lear and Professor Dodgson about him. Such uncles are not to be confused with contemporary playmates, but neither are they like parents. They are a breed apart. By very definition, bachelor uncles should be dying out, but let us hope that even unto our children's children there will be a hard core of ebullient eccentrics who answer to the name.

~ Joan Bodger
How the Heather Looks

We Like Weather

"We like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."
 How did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane, "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."
"It's the other way round," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Haven't you ever noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what's snow's made for."
"I'm sure I hated wet days as a child," said Jane.
"That's because the grown-ups kept you in," said Camilla. Any child loves rain if it's allowed to go out and paddle about in it."

That Hideous Strength
C. S. Lewis

"God, Who Madest Earth and Heaven"

Music 

God, who madest earth and heaven,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
Who the day and night hast given,
Sun and moon and starry host;
Whose almighty hand sustains
Earth and all that it contains:

God, I thank Thee, in Thy keeping
Safely have I slumbered here;
Thou hast guarded me while sleeping
From all danger, pain, and fear;
And the cunning evil Foe
Hath not wrought my overthrow.

Let the night of my transgression
With night's darkness pass away.
Jesus, into Thy possession
I resign myself today;
In Thy wounds I find relief
From all sorrow, sin, and grief.

Help me as the morn is breaking,
In the spirit to arise,
So from careless sloth awaking,
That, when o'er the aged skies
Shall the Judgment Day appear,
I may see it without fear.

Lead me, and forsake me never,
Guide my wanderings by Thy Word;
As Thou hast been, be Thou ever
My Defense, my Refuge, Lord.
Never safe except with Thee,
Thou my faithful Guardian be.

 O my God, I now commend me
Wholly to Thy mighty hand;
As the powers that Thou dost lend me
Let me use at Thy command.
Lord, my Shield, my Strength divine,
Keep me with Thee,--I am Thine.


Hymn #549
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Psalm 7:17
Author: Heinrich Albert, 1644, ab.
Translated by: Catherine Winkworth, 1855, alt.
Titled: "Gott des Himmels und der Erden"
Composer: Heinrich Albert, 1644
Tune: "Gott des Himmels"

Thanksgiving

When all thy mercies, O my God,

my rising soul surveys,

transported with the view, I'm lost

in wonder, love, and praise.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul

thy tender care bestowed,

before my infant heart conceived

from whom those comforts flowed.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts

my daily thanks employ;

nor is the least a cheerful heart

that tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life

thy goodness I'll pursue;

and after death, in distant worlds

the glorious theme renew.

Through all eternity to thee

a joyful song I'll raise;

for O, eternity's too short

to utter all thy praise! Amen.

Joseph Addison, 1672-1719

"Tell the truth, now and evermore. Truth is generally amusing, if it's nothing else!"

Lady Harriet

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Tyger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

Songs of Innocence and Experience

"The Tyger"

by William Blake

It begins to look as if there were an art, or a gift, which criticism has largely ignored. It may even be one of the greatest arts; for it produces works which give us (at the first meeting) as much delight and (on prolonged acquaintance) as much wisdom and strength as the works of the greatest poets. It is in some ways more akin to music than to poetry-or at least to most poetry. It goes beyond the expression of things we have already felt. It arouses in us sensations we have never had before, never anticipated having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of consciousness and "possessed joys not promised to our birth." It gets under our skin, hits us at a level deeper than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives.

C.S. Lewis on George MacDonald

Princesses

"THERE was once a little princess who—
"But Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?"
"Because every little girl is a princess."
"You will make them vain if you tell them that."
"Not if they understand what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"What do you mean by a princess?"
"The daughter of a king."

The Princess and the Goblin
~George MacDonald