Archive for March, 2007

I am working on the hymnody of John Fawcett (1740-1817), an important Baptist figure in the North of England, and came across these great lines:

Depraved minds on ashes feed
Nor love nor seek for heavenly food.

Here is a good hymn by Beddome (HT: Gray Brady: Hymn Dark Providence)—it well expresses my current feelings:

Under Dark Providence

Great God, how deep thy counsels are,
To mortals quite unknown;
In vain we search with curious eye,
For darkness veils thy throne.

Yet would we wish for grace divine,
To guide our mental powers;
And midst perplexing scenes of life
To know that thou art ours.

‘Let there be light,’ was once the word.
Oh be it so again!
What thou hast promised, Lord, we seek,
Nor let us seek in vain.

Wow! What a serendipity! I just found the blog entitled Benjamin Beddome, on one of my favourite Baptist forebears. Beddome (1717-1795) was in many ways a remarkable preacher and hymnwriter—one of the two most important Baptist hymnwriters of the “long” eighteenth century, the other being Anne Steele (1717-1778).

The writer of the blog is Pastor Gray Brady—many thanks, dear brother for blogging on this forgotten Baptist hero.

By the way, there is a fascinating link between Beddome and Steele, since he once proposed marriage to her, and she refused him! There is a letter from Beddome in this regard in the Archives of the Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, the University of Oxford. An independent scholar, Mr. Stephen Pickles of Oxford, alerted me to this gem a few years ago.

Dr. Mohler has a brief examination of the life and work of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., one of the most influential historians of the past century, who died yesterday, February 28, 2007, in New York.

See Dr. Mohler’s post here: Al Mohler.

It was Schlesinger who once argued that “history is to the nation rather as memory is the individual.” A right-on comment if there ever was one! Mohler rightly comments, “we may argue with Schlesinger’s interpretations of that memory,” but “we do well to take his contribution seriously.”