Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 07:3 (Summer 1998)
Article: Editor’s Introduction This Is My Father’s World
Author: Jonathan Armstrong

RAR 7:3 (Summer 1998) p. 7

Editor’s Introduction This Is My Father’s World

John H. Armstrong

Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858–1901), pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Lockport, New York, had been an outstanding baseball player and a champion swimmer before he entered the ministry of the gospel. To keep his physical condition he ran virtually every morning. Early in the day he ran as much as eight miles—first to the brow of a hill overlooking Lake Ontario and then into a ravine where he observed as many as forty different species of birds in their native habitat. He sometimes told his staff, “I am going out to see my Father’s world.” Babcock also loved music. He played the organ, piano and violin.1

It is no surprise then that Maltbie Babcock, the New York Presbyterian minister, gave the church one of her greatest hymns:

This is my Father’s world,

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world:

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—

His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world,

The birds their carols raise,

The morning light, the lily white,

Declare their maker’s praise.

This is my Father’s world:

He shines in all that’s fair;

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,

He speaks to me everywhere.

RAR 7:3 (Summer 1998) p. 8

This is my Father’s world,

O let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world:

The battle is not done;

Jesus who died shall be satisfied,

And earth and heav’n be one.

But is this really the Father’s world?
Many, especially under the influence of
modern charismatic faith teachers, speak
as if God has given the world over to
the Devil. They continually “bind the Devil”
and try to reclaim the world for God, who
somehow seems to have lost it in a cosmic
battle in the Garden of Eden.

But is this really the Father’s world? Many, especially under the influence of modern charismatic faith teachers, speak as if God has given the world over to the Devil. They continually “bind the Devil” and try to reclaim th...