Now Thank We All, Our God

A seventeenth century German pastor is said to have buried five thousand (5,000) of his parishioners in one year, an average of nearly fifteen a day. Yet, although his parish was ravaged by war, pestilence and an invader’s economic oppression, he wrote this table grace for his children:

Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom the world rejoices.
Who from our mother’s arms,
Hath led us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years War, Martin Rinkart drew spiritual strength from a spirit of thanksgiving for God’s past and present goodness.
Richard D.Dinwiddie, ‘The Sacrifice of Praise’, Christianity Today, 20th November 1981, p.40

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