The World May Boast The Brilliant Light

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The world may boast the brilliant light

Translator: Jane E. Arnold; Author: H. A. César Malan, 1787-1864
Tune: ARIZONA (Earnshaw)
Published in 1 hymnal

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 The world may boast the brilliant light
Of science, which oft deceives;
But oft, in clouds of error’s night
Her dazzled votaries she leaves.

2 What shall man’s intellect avail,
When God His judgments shall display?
How soon its boasted power shall fail
Before the terrors of that day.

3 Jesus! Thy words alone impart
Eternal truth and sure repose;
No doubts shall overwhelm the heart,
Which Thee and Thy salvation knows.

4 How precious to my thirsting soul
The truths Thy sacred words convey;
Mighty to strengthen and console,
And which shall never pass away.

5 Here will I rest, beneath Thy cross,
Where faith the way of life discerns,
And counting all things else but loss,
My soul eternal wisdom learns.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #10506

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Translator: Jane E. Arnold

(no biographical information available about Jane E. Arnold.) Go to person page >

Author: H. A. César Malan, 1787-1864

Rv Henri Abraham Cesar Malan, 1787-1864. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, into a bourgeois family that moved to Switzerland to escape religious persecution during the French Revolution, he attended the university in Marseilles, France, intending to become a businessman. Although having some grounding in religious faith by his mother, he decided to attend the Academy at Geneva (founded by Calvin) in preparation for ministry. He was ordained in 1810, after being appointed a college master (teaching Latin) in 1809. Malan was in accord with the National Church of Geneva as a Unitarian, but the Reveil Movement caused him to become a dissident (evangelical) instead of a proponent of the Reformed Church (believing works, not faith, was what mattere… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	The world may boast the brilliant light
Title:	The World May Boast The Brilliant Light
Translator:	Jane E. Arnold
Author:	H. A. César Malan, 1787-1864
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Source:	Lyra Evangelica (London: John F. Shaw,1866)
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain