Hymn - Oh, For a Faith That Will Not Shrink

 

"Oh, for a Faith That Will Not Shrink"
by William H. Bathhurst, 1796-1877

Tune - St. Peter - linked here

1. Oh, for a faith that will not shrink
Tho' pressed by many a foe;
That will not tremble on the brink
Of poverty or woe;

2. That will not murmur nor complain
Beneath the chast'ning rod,
But in the hour of grief or pain
Can lean upon its God;

3. A faith that shines more bright and clear
When tempests rage without;
That, when in danger, knows no fear,
In darkness feels no doubt;

4. That bears unmoved the world's dread frown
Nor heeds its scornful smile;
That sin's wild ocean cannot drown
Nor Satan's arts beguile;

5. A faith that keeps the narrow way
Till life's last spark is fled
And with a pure and heavenly ray
Lights up the dying bed.

6. Lord give us such a faith as this;
And then, whate'er may come,
We'll taste e'en now the hallowed bliss
Of an eternal home.

Hymn #396
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Luke 17:5
Author: William H. Bathhurst, 1831, alt.
Composer: Alexander R. Reinagle, 1836
Tune: "St. Peter"

 Bathurst also wrote - "Jesus Thy Church with Longing Eyes"

Hymn - Come Ye Disconsolate

"Come, Ye Disconsolate"
by Thomas Moore, 1779-1852; Stanza 1, 2
by Thomas Hastings, 1784-1872; Stanza 3

Tune - Alma Redemptoris mater - linked here

1. Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,
Come to the Mercy-seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

2. Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure;
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.

3. Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but Heaven can remove.

Hymn #531
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Hebrews 4:16
Author: Thomas Moore, 1816, alt.; St. 1, 2
Author: Thomas Hastings, 1832; St. 3
Composer: Samuel Webbe, 1792
Tune: "Alma Redemptoris mater"

The woman at the well, John 4.

Hymn - Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning

"Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning"
by Reginald Heber, 1783-1826

Tune - Morning Star - linked here

1. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

2. Cold on His cradle the dewdrops are shining;
Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall.
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.

3. Shall we not yield Him, In costly devotion
Odors of Edom and offerings divine,
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine?

4. Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would His favor secure.
Richer by far is the heart's adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

5. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

The Lutheran Hymnal
Hymn #128
Text: Matthew 2:11
Author: Reginald Heber, 1811
Composer: John P. Harding, 1892
Tune: "Morning Star"

Bishop Reginald Heber also wrote Holy, Holy, Holy and the Missionary Hymn.

Hymn - Blessed Savior Who Has Taught Us

"Blessed Savior, Who hast Taught Me"
by John M. Neale, 1818-1866

    Tune - O du Liebe - linked here

1. Blessed Savior, who hast taught me
I should live to Thee alone,
All these years Thy hand hath brought me
Since I first was made Thine own.
At the font my vows were spoken
By my parents in the Lord;
That my vows shall be unbroken
At the altar I record.

2. I would trust in Thy protecting,
Wholly rest upon Thine arm,
Follow wholly Thy directing,
O my only Guard from harm,
Meet me now with Thy salvation
In Thy Church's ordered way;
Let me feel Thy confirmation
In Thy truth and fear today.

3. So that, might and firmness gaining,
Hope in danger, joy in grief,
Now and evermore remaining
In the one and true belief,
Resting in my Savior's merit,
Strengthened with Thy Spirit's strength,
With Thy saints I may inherit
All My Father's joy at length.

Hymn #333
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Ezekiel 16:60
Author: John M. Neale, 1842, cento.
Tune: "O du Liebe"
1st Published in: Musikalischer Christenschatz
Town: Basel, 1745B

The Lutheran Librarian Said This on the Phone Today, In So Many Words

John C. Ryle
A link to his work.

Many people will put up with anything in religion, if they may only have a quiet life. They have a morbid dread of what they call “controversy.” They are filled with a morbid fear of what the style, in a vague way, “party spirit,” though they never define clearly what party spirit is. They are possessed with a morbid desire to keep the peace and make all things smooth and pleasant, even though it be at the expense of truth. So long as they have outward calm, smoothness, stillness, and order, they seem content to give up everything else. 

~The Fallibility of Ministers             J.C. Ryle

Whenever we hear teaching which obscures or contradicts justification by faith, we may be sure there is a screw loose somewhere. We should watch against such teaching, and be upon our guard. Once let a man get wrong about justification, and he will bid a long farewell to comfort, to peace, to a lively hope, to anything like assurance in his Christianity. An error here is like a worm at the root.

~The Fallibility of Ministers             J.C. Ryle

Samuel Johnson

 

 Samuel Johnson was a devout Christian, which is seldom mentioned in literature classes. I longed to get his enormous Dictionary at one time, but I am over that.
He was born today, 1709. He was quite near-sighted.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Johnson/Maturity-and-recognition

The Britannica article has a lot of good information. 

Wiki

In 1746, a group of publishers approached Johnson with an idea about creating an authoritative dictionary of the English language.^[67] A contract with William Strahan and associates, worth 1,500 guineas, was signed on the morning of 18 June 1746.^[75] Johnson claimed that he could finish the project in three years. In comparison, the Académie Française had 40 scholars spending 40 years to complete their dictionary, which prompted Johnson to claim, "This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."^[67] Although he did not succeed in completing the work in three years, he did manage to finish it in eight.^[67] Some criticised the dictionary, including Thomas Babington Macaulay, who described Johnson as "a wretched etymologist,"^[76] but according to Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time."^[4]

When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?' said she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice.^[17]

Boswell's Life of Johnson

Johnson's biographer, Boswell, was as interesting as his subject.

Tofu Buildings in China - Demolition - Economy a Sham Propped Up by West

 

The Old Man in the Mountain wonders, "When will the People's Republic of China collapse, in the same way as the tofu apartments?"

What a Waste - Article from India with this video

I remember meeting a retired man who talked about his investment in China. The values were way up and collapsed to nothing. Someone talked him into using up his insurance cash value for this great investment in the exploding Chinese economy. Western money is solicited for inventing a booming economy and covering up the truth.

As I have reported before, the Chinese economy is a sham. They routinely build tofu structures, the nickname used because their concrete starts to fail a few years after completion. The Three Gorges Dam is one such project, criticized by a team of engineers for using China biggest products in producing dam concrete - human and animal manure. The Chinese response was to call the team of engineers "racist" and remove them from the country.

Here is a song by Cohen:

That's how it goes

Everybody knows.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.

Everybody knows that the captain lied.

Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died.

Cohen was a sensation when I was in college and he recently died. Watch any talent show and someone will warble his Halleluiah. His Everybody Knows is definitely the anthem for our age, where we

1. Traded the classic KJV for a cavalcade of Bibles for Dummies;
2. Burned more churches than the Chicago Fire using Church Growth for kindling;
3. Converted warmed over bar music into expensive "hymns" for the young;
4. Replaced the Gospel of Faith in Christ with trust in demographics;
5. Agreed with Calvinists that the Sacraments were just ordinances;
6. Protected the drunk, adulterous clergy and abhorred the efficacy of the Word;
7. Elected synod presidents with no concept of Biblical doctrine. None.
8. Yapped constantly about grace but spurned the Means of Grace.
9. Turned Universalism - Objective Justification - into the Chief Article of Christianity.
10. Used the teaching of Justification by Faith (the actual Chief Article) as the sufficient cause for excommunication.

 Abused WELS students laugh at "We ran out of Germans" sermon by Jeske,
who ran out of ideas to steal several decades ago. Notice the ties - a photo op staged by attention hog Mark and Avoid Jeske.