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Henry Alford

Henry Alford


Henry Alford was an English churchman, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer.

His chief fame rests on his monumental edition of the New Testament in Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first produced a careful collation of the readings of the chief manuscripts and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day. Philological rather than theological in character, it marked an epochal change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.

      Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, one of the most variously-accomplished churchmen of his day -- poet, preacher, painter, musician, biblical scholar, critic, and philologist -- came of a Somersetshire family, five generations of which, in direct succession, contributed clergymen of some distinction to the English Church. The earliest of these, his great-great-grandfather, Thomas, who died in 1708, was for many years the vicar of Curry Rivell, near Taunton -- a living that passed from one to another of his descendants.

      Alford was a talented artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870), shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse, The School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek Testament. The Four Gospels (1849), and a number of hymns, the best-known of which are "Forward! be our watchword," "Come, ye thankful people, come," and "Ten thousand times ten thousand."

      His chief fame rests on his monumental edition of the New Testament in Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first produced a careful collation of the readings of the chief manuscripts and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day. Philological rather than theological in character, it marked an epochal change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.

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Contrary to popular opinion, manners are not a luxury good that's interesting only to those who can afford to think about them. The essence of good manners is not exclusivity, nor exclusion of any kind, but sensitivity. To practice good manners is to confer upon others not just consideration but esteem; it's to bathe others in a commodity best described by noted speller Aretha Franklin.
topics: etiquette , manners  
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If you are afraid of death, you are afraid of life, for living your life leads to death. Until you face death and see its beauty, you will be afraid to really live—you will never properly burn the candle for fear of its end.
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I used to be svelte but with age I have svelled.
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Life is so short, So Fast The Lone Hours Fly, We Ought To Be Together, You and I
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First, I give my gracious God an entire sacrifice of body and soul, with my most humble thanks for that assurance which His Blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the Salvation of the one, and the Resurrection of the other;
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My hand is lonely for your clasping, dear; My ear is tired waiting for your call. I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer; Heart, soul and senses need you, one and all. I droop without your full, frank sympathy; We ought to be together—you and I; We want each other so, to comprehend The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought. Companion, comforter and guide and friend, As much as love asks love, does thought ask thought. Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly, We ought to be together, you and I.
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‎"Man's life is of God, not of his goods, however abundant they may be.
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No man ever saw God and lived; and yet, I shall not live till I see God; and when I have seen him I shall never die
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There is no accounting for the ignorance of unbelief, as any minister of Christ knows by painful experience.
topics: Apathy , Unbelief  
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Thou canst not tell how rich a dowry sorrow gives the soul, how firm a faith and eagle sight of God.
topics: Faith  
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The poor man's hand is the treasury of Christ.
topics: Finances  
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Man's life is of God, not of his goods, however abundant they may be.
topics: Finances  
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Law is king of all.
topics: Government  
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Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straightforwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferiors, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.
topics: Honesty  
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I know not if the dark or bright shall be by lot; if that wherein my hopes delight be best or not.
topics: Reasoning  
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If the way in which men express their thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will be very difficult for their thoughts themselves to escape being the same. If it is high flown and bombastic, a character for national simplicity and truthfulness cannot long be maintained.
topics: Truth  
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Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail, but in conveying a right impression; and there are vague ways of speaking that are truer than strict facts would be. When the Psalmist said, "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law," he did not state the fact, but he stated a truth deeper than fact, and truer.
topics: Truth  
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I understood it immediately. With each step up the ladder, the step beneath it disappeared, so that the higher she rose in life, the more vertiginous her position.
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Of course the tallest monument in Paris is the Eiffel Tower, named for the visionary engineer who designed it, Fred Tower.
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I know not if the dark or bright Shall be by lot, If that wherein my hopes delight, be best or not
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