The Highest Good - Chambers, Oswald
The Highest Good
containing also
The Pilgrim’s Song Book
and
Thy Great Redemption
Oswald Chambers
The Pilgrim’s Song Book 1940
The Highest Good 1938
Thy Great Redemption 1937
Combined edition: copyright 1965 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association
Scripture versions quoted: KJV and RV
The Pilgrim’s Song Book
Introduction
Source
The material in the pilgrims song book is from talks given by Oswald chambers in the wensley dale district of yorkshire during august and September 1915.
Publication history
.as articles: the material was published as a series of articles in spiritual life magazine between October 1939 and may 1940.
.As a book: the pilgrims song book was first published as a book in 1940. It was published in a combined volume with the highest good and thy great redemption in 1965.
After Oswald volunteered for service as a chaplain and was accepted by the ymca, the bible training college 1 closed at the end of the term in july 1915. For their august holiday, Oswald, biddy, and kathleen 2 stayed in a house provided by their friend and league of prayer 3 associate jim skidmore, in the yorkshire village of askrigg. During august, they hiked the moors, picnicked with friends, and oswald fished the clear streams. They also kept an open door to a steady stream of family, friends, and former students of the bible training college. At their informal evening gatherings and at Sunday chapel services in the surrounding villages, Oswald spoke from the psalms of ascent, 120 through 134.
It is probable that mrs. Chambers was unable to take notes of all oswalds talks. Psalm 121 is not included, and the series concludes at psalm 128. (for a 1910 message given by Oswald chambers on psalm 121, see the place of help, chapter 1. ) during september, chambers began his minis- try to soldiers in the training camps of wensleydale. In October 1915, he sailed for egypt, where he was joined in december by biddy, kathleen, and their close friend mary riley.4 katherine ashes 5 foreword to the first edition expresses the freedom and joy of those summer days in askrigg, 6 despite the shadow of uncertainty and separation cast on all of them by world war i.7.
Foreword to the First edition
Our own are our own for ever has been said by one and another in differing words and in many languages. That is why time and distance are (in a sense) nothing in any human life that lives in the things unseeneternal where st. Paul had his abiding place. And just as the essential beauty and sweetness of a rose is what stays with us, and not the very rose itself so it is the personality of a beloved person or the spirit of a season of time (to put it like that) that abides with us for ever. In londons hurrying life; in the press of teeming humanity in a chinese city; in the grinding monotony of a quiet countryside; on a parched soil under a burning sky; in deep Canadian winter snows, or in the peace of a leisured lifethe yorkshire moor away up at wensleydale, with its waters and streams, its rushing winds and stealing lovely airs, its lights and its shadows, its cliffs and rolling spaces; above all, its magnificence of space and sky, is as present to bless and renew as if wensleydale itself were hereour very own. It was at wensleydale around askrigg that, in the summer and autumn of 1915, a company of men and women gathered to spend some weeks in the most informal way of living, coming and going, alone or together, gathered with one implicit motivethat of seeking to enter more deeply into a personal relationship with the redeemer of the world, and into a deeper understanding of redemption. The two peo- ple who created this most natural time of simplicity and freedom, lived that summer in a tiny cottage with kathleen, then a gay and bonnie baby of two, and mary of the deep and loving heart, and these psalms and their exposition were part of the evening hour in the cottage. Some were given in the little plain unadorned chapels in the villages: i to the hills will lift mine eyes as the hills stand round about Jerusalem, so . . . The sun by day, the moon by night, and always one sensed these were songs of ascent, the march- ing, singing crowds, the hills, the starsthat and the deep, deep life of the human race in its going through the ages of timeone did not forget. The war came into all our lives when those days ended. War, and the years that followed war and the world was never again as we had known it. The great earth yes, and her glorious and most gentle loveliness and strength but the thought and world dream of prwar days was for ever gone. Only the stern business of holding the eternal values in the strange world dream of these new days is left us as our task. But the pure and vigorous life of the thought and worship of that time remain sour own for ever; and the fresh strong gladness of its setting in the moors is ours for all time for ever ours.
I to the hills will lift mine eyes;
From whence shall come mine aid?
My help it cometh from the Lord
Who heaven and earth hath made.
Katherine Ashe
Cairo, July 1940
Contents
Psalm 120 ……………………………………………………………………………. 526
Psalm 122 ……………………………………………………………………………. 528
Psalm 123 ……………………………………………………………………………. 530
Psalm 124 ……………………………………………………………………………. 531
Psalm 125 ……………………………………………………………………………. 533
Psalm 126 ……………………………………………………………………………. 535
Psalm 127 ……………………………………………………………………………. 536
Psalm 128 ……………………………………………………………………………. 537