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Chronicles of St George |
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The Chronicles of St. George is the parish newsletter. It is published quarterly. Since the summer of 2008 it is published as an Acrobat (PDF) file. To read the Chronicles you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download from Adobe).
Chronicles #75 (July 2008). If you wish to have a copy of any issue of the Chronicles since July 2008, you may send a request to stgweb@shaw.ca. Issues since then include: November 2008, January 2009, April 2009, June 2009, October 2009, January 2010 and April 2010. If you wish, you may request to be put on a list to receive your copy automatically to your email address.
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Last Updated:
Monday 17 Mar, 2008, 02:18 PM
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Favorite Hymns
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Words: Isaac Watts (1674-1748), 1707
When I survey the wondrous cross
where the young Prince of Glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the cross of Christ, my God:
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
After Isaac Watts finished his college studies and returned home to Southampton, he wrote many of his now immortalized hymns for Above Bar Congregational Church. In 16976, Isaac, twenty-two, left home for London to become a tutor.
All the while he was feeling a clear tug toward ministry. On his twenty fourth birthday, July 17, 1698, Isaac preached his first sermon. The following year he became assistant pastor of London’s Mark Lane Church.
In March of 1700, Isaac received a long letter from his brother, Enoch, urging him to publish the hymns he had written at Southampton. The letter said:
Dear Brother, In your last letter you mentioned an inclination to oblige the world by showing it your hymns in print, and I heartily wish.... that you were something more than inclinable thereunto.... I am very confident whoever has the happiness of reading your hymns (unless he be either sot or atheist) will have a very favourable opinion of their author. There is.... a great need of a pen, vigorous and lively as yours, to quicken and revive the dying devotion of the age. Yours now is the old truth, stripped of its ragged ornaments, and appears, if we may say so, younger by ages in a new and fashionable dress.
Isaac, however, hesitated. He had other obligations on his time. On March 8, 1702, he became Mark Lane’s pastor. The next year, 1703, the church chose Samuel Price of Wales to assist Isaac, due to the latter’s fragile health. Under the preaching of these two, the old, dying church revived. The building grew too small for the crowds, and a new house of worship was built down the street.
Finally in 1707, Watts published his hymns, selling the copyright to a Mr. Lawrence, the publisher, for ten pounds. This volume was an instant success. It was enlarged and republished in 1709.
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” appeared in his 1707 book of hymns; inspired by Galatians 6:14, it was originally titled, “Crucifixion to the World, by the Cross of Christ.” Many consider it the finest hymn in English church history, and Charles Wesley reportedly said he would rather have written it than all his own.
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