In the multitude of my thoughts within me Thy comforts
delight my soul. (Psalm 94:19)
One hundred and seventy-eight years ago today, an eighteen-year-old young lady
by the name of Alexandrina Victoria, daughter of King William IV, was crowned Queen
Victoria over the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Her reign was one of the
most enlightened, enduring, and prosperous of all English nobility. So, it
seems only natural to comment on a hymn written by another English lady by the
name of Anne Steele.
Anne was born in 1699, a time when Isaac Watts was nearby Hampshire writing his
Psalmody. She experienced some tragedy
in her life that seems to have inspired her writing. Hymn, devotions, and
psalmody seem to have been driven by those comforts imparted by her Lord
through all of her life’s experience.
Her engagement to a gentleman named Robert Elscourt
is legendary in Hampshire where she was born, raised, and attended her uncle’s
Baptist church. Just as the fiancée of Joseph Scriven (What a Friend
we Have in Jesus) had drowned the day before their planned wedding, so did
Mr. Elscourt the day before the planned wedding to Anne. She was heartbroken,
but driven to write devotions and hymns. She was the first woman hymn-writer of
England. The present hymn was published in 1760 and the music (Martydom)
composed in 1800 by Hugh Wilson. Anne died at the age of 61 on November 11th
1778. Her last words were “I know my Redeemer liveth”. She is buried at
St. Mary’s, Broughton, Hampshire. These words are inscribed on her tomb:
Silent the lyre and dumb the tuneful tongue
That sung on earth her great Redeemer’s praise
But now in heaven she joins the angelic song,
In more harmonious, more exalted lays
Thou
Lovely Source of True Delight
Thou lovely Source of true delight,
Whom I unseen adore;
Unveil Thy beauties to my sight,
That I may love Thee more.
Thy glory o’er creation shines;
But in Thy sacred Word,
I read in fairer, brighter lines,
My bleeding, dying Lord.
’Tis here, whene’er my comforts
droop,
And sins and sorrows rise,
Thy love with cheerful beams of
hope,
My fainting heart supplies.
Jesus, my Lord, my Life, my
Light,
O come with blissful ray;
Break radiant through the shades
of night,
And chase my fears away.
Then shall my soul with rapture
trace
The wonders of Thy love;
But the full glories of Thy face
Are only known above.
Thou
lovely Source of true delight, Whom I unseen adore; Unveil Thy beauties to my
sight, That I may love Thee more. The
Source of all things made in Creation is invested in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the Source of all blessing and comfort to the believer; and He is certainly
a delight to all who call upon His glorious Name. Though we may not see His
image in perfect relief, we do see His whole Person in the Holy Word of God –
which WORD He is: 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the
volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. (Heb
10:7) The unveiling of the
beauty of Christ to us comes through the diligent study of His Word and the
prayerful implementation of that Word in our daily lives. The more we know of
Christ, the more we are compelled by that knowledge to LOVE Him!
Thy glory o’er creation shines; But in Thy sacred Word, I read in fairer,
brighter lines, My bleeding, dying Lord. Sometimes, I believe the
ruin of Eden is suspended in the good hearts of wild beast that we read about,
and witness firsthand, doing acts of love and mercy out of character.
Certainly, there is a higher love demonstrated often in the hearts of dear
pets. The testimony of God’s Creation is voiced in the Rivers of Water, in the
constantly ebbing of the Seas, and in the hearts of the beasts whom God also loves:
7 But ask now the beasts, and they
shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: 8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach
thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 9 Who knoweth not in all these that the
hand of the LORD hath wrought this? 10 In whose hand is the soul of every living
thing, and the breath of all mankind.
The little child is His crown of favor,
but also the beasts that we often abuse with cruelty and neglect. God gave us
dominion over beasts, the mountains, and the ocean sea. That means we must CARE
for these. Do we not often treat these as our own personal junkyards? 10 A righteous man regardeth the life
of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. (Prov
12:10) In all of the lines
of God’s Word, but also in His Creation, do we read in fairer, brighter lines, My bleeding,
dying LORD!
’Tis here, whene’er my comforts droop, And sins and sorrows rise, Thy
love with cheerful beams of hope, My fainting heart supplies.”It
is sometimes the case that our spiritual comforts are multiplied with the onset
of sorrow and pain. This was the case with young Anne Steele, and it is
repeated daily in the lives of many God-fearing saints of the Church. Is it not
a blessed feeling to have fallen short in our sins, but returned to the Throne
of Grace to be forgiven fully? In our moments of sorrow, perhaps the most
effective eraser of that sorrow would be to sing a hymn such as the one under
study. I have done so hundreds of times by beginning to sing all alone in great
sorrow, and end with the company of angels on my shoulder and the bright beams
of God’s love cascading into my heart. There is no way to learn this principle
but by experience. Try it!
Jesus, my Lord, my Life, my Light, O come with blissful ray; Break
radiant through the shades of night, And chase my fears away.
The first requirement for us to receive the Light Beams of God’s Love, and His
nourishing fare of Life, is to now Him as your Lord and Savior. This is the
first principle of Godly joy. The Love of God knows no limits – neither
distance, darkness, nor even death. In fact, Love is the one thing that is not
subject to death. Death cannot separate the believer from the Love of God. 36 As it is written, For thy sake we
are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:36-39). It is that abiding Love of God that
dispels fears and replaces them with Love and Hope.
Then shall my soul with rapture trace The
wonders of Thy love; But the full glories of Thy face Are only known above. Our finite minds cannot comprehend fully the riches of God
in Christ made available to us in our eternal home. The circumstance would be
likened to a flea trying to comprehend the aerodynamics of a Boeing 747;
however, the same aerodynamics laws apply to the flea’s flight (though he
cannot understand them). The rapture described is defined as “a mystical
experience in which the spirit is exalted to a knowledge of divine things.”
We may not comprehend the calculus of God, but we can know the simple
arithmetic. 1+1+1, in God’s equation, always equals ONE!
And do you know another little mystery? 1
(God) + 1 (Jesus Christ) + 1 (Holy Ghost) +1 (You) still equals ONE! This math
will never make sense to the calculating unbeliever. But if you believe in the
Triune God, you will understand the math. Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be
one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name:
those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of
perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and
these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in
themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou
shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from
the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. . . . And the
glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we
are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and
that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou
hast loved me. (John
17:11-16, 22-23)
