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February 1929
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task of teaching that old man “how to believe in Christ, and how to worship the one true God.” The evangelists had a long talk with Mr. Yang, and he seemed to realize that the message they brought to him was true and was for him. As the evangelists were leaving, Mr. Yang said: “This evening I will bring my grandson with me to your headquarters that we may learn more about faith in Jesus and about worshiping the true God. I am nearly at the end of my earthly pilgrimage and I want to make sure that my soul does hot go to hell.” Eighty years of age and had never even heard of Jesus, and probably never would have heard had it not been for the visit ih his coun try home of two evangelists of one of our Biola Evangel istic Bands.
Just now the October report from Band No. 3 has come to hand and it stirs one's very soul. Let me give you one incident from this report. On October 25 two of our evangelists called on a Mr. Yang and told him the “Old, Old Story.” Mr. Yang said: “Gentlemen, I am eighty years of age but never in all my life have I heard such a story as this which you have just told me, that by believing in Jesus and worshiping God I can obtain forgiveness of sin, escape from the horrors of hell, and obtain eternal happiness. Do tell me how to believe in Jesus and how to worship pod.” Just here is illustrated the great value of this method of work. The evangelists were not in a hurry, it was not necessary to make a certain number of visits that day, so they just quietly settled down to the glorious
ate ate ate
John Keble and His Hymns B y P rof . J ohn B . T rowbridge
i OHN KEBLE belonged to a coterie of brilliant, highly cultured and devout English clergymen of the first half of the eighteenth century. He was born at Fair ford, Gloucestershire, in 1792, his father being Vicar of Coin St. Aldwyn’s. The family was an old and highly respected one and is traced back to Sir Henry Keble, Lord Mayor of London in the time of Henry V III. A son of this official seems to have preferred country life and so purchased the estate of East Leach Turville. This possession was held by his descendants for several generations, but in some way slipped out of their grasp, at a time and in a manner not known. But three hundred years later we still find a family representative on the old domain—not as “Lord of the Manor” but as a humble Curate, satisfied with a few pounds a year, caring for the physical and spiritual needs of his flock. As a boy of fourteen, fresh from his father’s exclu sive tutelage, Keble won a scholarship in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was a fellow student with Thomas Arnold, later of Rugby, and other young men who rose to prominence. Here he spent four busy years, win ning a name for himself as a brilliant student. At the end of this time he did the remarkable thing of winning “Double First” honors, a distinction that thus far had been won by no one except Sir Robert Peel. Soon after he was elected to Oriel College, and moved across the street to become a member of a more distinguished group. Here he met John Henry Newman, whose life was to be so in timately associated with his. Newman described Keble at this time as “more like an undergraduate than first man in Oxford.” . T h e C hristian Y ear John Keble’s greatest literary production is “The Christian Year,” a series of devotional and inspirational poems for every important day of the church calendar, and it is upon this work that his place as a poet largely rests. Of these poems Dr. Arnold of Rugby declared that “nothing equal to them exists in our language.” Dun can Campbell in his “Hymns and Hymn Makers” says : “It shows a singularly exact knowledge of Scripture; a wonderful appreciation of the distinctive features of the
Holy Land, though he never set foot on i t ; great sympathy with nature, and great insight into the human heart.” Like Wordsworth he seemed to find “authentic tidings of invisible things” in the beautiful English countryside. “The Christian Year” was intended as a companion to the Prayer Book 6f the English church. The poems were not written as hymns, and Keble would not be classed as a hymn writer in the sense that Watts and Wesley are so designated. But from several of his longer poems are selected stanzas that are full of devotion and have the lyric elements that make great hymns. The author was very modest about the work and had no thought of pub lishing it when he did, in 1827, until urged to do so by his father, who wished to see it in print in his lifetime. “It will be still-born, I know very well; but it is only in obedience to my father’s wishes that I publish it, and that is some comfort,” Keble told a friend—but instead it was a “best seller” from the first. The book passed through ninety-six editions while the author was living, and before the copyright expired in 1873 about 500,000 copies had been sold. The strong appeal this book made to the English pub lic is illustrated by an incident in the life of William Wilberforce. He, with his four gifted sons, each living in a different locality, had planned to spend a holiday to gether and each agreed to bring to the meeting place some new book that might be read aloud to the others. When they met it was found that each had brought a copy of “The Christian Year.” There is also an interesting and authentic story told of four strangers who met on Mt. Sinai, and it was discovered that three of them had copies of “The Christian Year.” The first poem in “The Christian Year” is on “Morn ing,” and the title of the second is “Evening” ; and from the sixteen stanzas of the one and the fourteen of the other are selected the lines of two hymns found in nearly every Hymnal. The first of these begins with the sixth stanza of “Morning” : “New every morning is the love Our wakening and uprising prove; Through sleep and darkness safely brought, Restored to life, and power, and thought.”
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