O For a Closer Walk With God

In today's bible reading, this lovely and haunting hymn by William Cowper was juxtaposed in the Book of Life with Jesus' high priestly prayer for his disciples (and all believers!). I thought it was interesting that the authors would make this connection...which seems so appropriate to me, as it is so often my own experience. I especially like the verse that begins with "The dearest idol I have known"...

O for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame,
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.

Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made Thee mourn
And drove Thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee.

So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.

Jane Austen on the "mega-church"

In Mansfield Park, chapter 9, Fanny and Edmund are discussing the importance of the clergyman with the disdainful Miss Crawford. Miss Crawford has just observed that don’t have much influence over their congregations, even if they preach “two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own (my footnote says that many preachers of that day would read the well-known and eloquent Rev. Hugh Blair’s sermons rather than preach their own...nothing new under the sun, hmmm?)

Edmund supposes she is speaking of large congregations in London, while he is referring to the rest of the nation.

“We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the largest part only as preachers…”