Matthew Henry John Bartlett

The Reverend Kavanaugh led the services at church today, so we sang from the old blue hymnal. #68 (by Isaac Watts, from Psalm 39), which we’ve not often sung, I found particularly worthwhile:

Teach me the measure of my days,
Thou Maker of my frame;
I would survey life’s narrow space,
And learn how frail I am.

A span is all that we can boast,
An inch or two of time;
Man is but vanity and dust
In all his flower and prime.

See the vain race of mortals move
Like shadows o’er the plain;
They rage and strive, desire and love,
But all the noise is vain.

Some walk in honor’s gaudy show,
Some dig for golden ore;
They toil for heirs, they know not who,
And straight are seen no more.

What should I wish or wait for, then,
From creatures earth and dust?
They make our expectations vain,
And disappoint our trust.

Now I forbid my carnal hope,
My fond desires recall;
I give my mortal interest up,
And make my God my all.

Whis puts me in mind of the following (#205, by Charles H Gabriel, from Psalm 103), which is my forever favourite:

The tender love a father has
For all his children dear,
Such love the Lord bestows on them
Who worship Him in fear.

The Lord remembers we are dust,
And all our frailty knows;
Man’s days are like the tender grass,
And as the flower he grows.

The flower is withered by the wind
That smites with blighting breath;
So man is quickly swept away
Before the blast of death.

Unchanging is the love of God,
From age to age the same,
Displayed to all who do His will
And reverence His Name.

Those who His gracious cov’nant keep
The Lord will ever bless;
Their children’s children shall rejoice
To see His righteousness.

A friend told me recently that although he doesn’t claim to understand it, he finds the Gospel of John rather beautiful. This morning Mr Oosterbaan read the first chapter or so of it, and I knew what my friend was talking about. It seemed to me John probably rushed home and wrote it the second he got back from the mountain of Transfiguration. Checking it out now, it’s interesting to see that Jesus instructed his disciples not to tell anyone the vision until after his resurrection.