Today I heard about Melinda Rankin for the first time. An amazing woman! Melinda was a single Presbyterian missionary in northern Mexico in the mid-ninteenth century who started a school in Monterrey. Her little autobiography, Twenty Years Among the Mexicans, ends with these excellent words:
Satan may yet make attempts to maintain his throne in Mexico, but only to find himself baffled and thwarted. The Bible is rapidly shedding its hallowed influences, and will constitute bulwarks against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
To me, the crowning joy of the work in Mexico is the triumph of Divine Truth over superstition and error, proving beyond a doubt that the Bible is Heaven’s ordained instrumentality for elevating fallen humanity, and for bringing back an apostate world to the allegiance of God. If there is one nation of people more than any other -with whom I shall delight to join in singing the song of Redeeming Love in the day when that great multitude, which no man can number, stands before the throne of God, I am sure it will be with the Mexican nation.
Big dittos!
Very, very nice. Thanks for posting it.
“We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May with one voice, and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.”
Hey, Chris. Where’s that quote from? I assume it’s a hymn.
You’re kidding, right? You Baptists!!
How Sweet and Awesome Is the Place (or Aweful, as originally written) by Watts.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/s/hsweetaw.htm
Usually a few words are tweaked (bowel to mercy, etc.). It’s one of my top 5 hymns, though. The picture of salvation as a feast, the humility that wonders at my inclusion and attributes it to God’s grace alone, then the turn to praying for the lost in the last two verse. It’s wonderful food for meditation, expressing what I wish I could say so beautifully.
We often stop before the last two to rejoice together in our salvation, then to pray for the Lord to compel the lost to come—to fill His church with a view at our ultimate praise around the Throne. Then we bellow out the last two verses. It’s a powerful, powerful text, and St. Columba is a great tune.
Sorry to ramble. Love it.
Wasn’t kidding.
Don’t think I’ve ever heard it–or at least don’t remember it. Very nice! Thanks. I’ll park on it for a few days.
thanks for sharing this AJ