A Prayer for the Sabbath Morn - Robert Dabney Bedinger

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

A prayer for the Sabbath morning by Presbyterian missionary Robert Dabney Bedinger (1885-1970), as recorded from his diary (late 1920’s in the Belgian Congo, Africa) in “Mary Dabney’s” Light in Darkness, p. 128:

My dear Father - God:

On this Sabbath morn I come into Thy Holy Presence. Give me the true attitude of prayer. Enable me to realize that Thou art near and listening; to appreciate the solemnity of approaching Thy majesty and greatness. May I humble myself before Thee. Thou art the great Eternal, the One and Only God - the Maker of the universe and all therein. I praise Thee for Thy goodness, love, mercy, longsuffering, patience, grace, peace; for the gift of Thy Son, Jesus my Lord, I thank Thee for Thy written revealed will for me and all mankind. Give me a deeper love and reverence for it. May I store it up in my mind and heart and practice it all my life.

I praise Thee for the way that Thy truth has gone out into all the earth; that it meets the needs of men everywhere; that it reveals Thyself in Thy matchless love and shows forth a Saviour mighty to save and to help; that this Saviour has touched the lives of so many here in this land of darkness.

Missionary Stories at Log College Press

(If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

If the history of missions work by American Presbyterians interests you, there is a goldmine to be discovered among the writings available at Log College Press. As Robert Dabney Bedinger wrote, “The providences of God run through the American Presbyterian Congo Mission like the vein of gold through the stratum of rock.” The stories that are told in these volumes will enrich, educate and inspire. Readers can explore the world and learn how the gospel has gone forth to all four corners of the planet.

We have many volumes by and about missionaries on the Missions page. Today we wish to highlight some of the new additions that tell the story in particular of Southern Presbyterian foreign missions, as well as other volumes that have been available here for some time. Within the following memoirs and historical accounts are told the stories men and women who followed the call of Christ to foreign lands to testify of his goodness and the gospel of his free grace by their lives and labors. Additionally, some have served as educators, translators, diplomats, medical workers and more to help those in need and to advance cross-cultural understanding and appreciation. Take time to get to know these stories. Pray for these lands. And consider the promise of God that “all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num. 14.21).

General

  • Samuel Hall Chester, LIghts and Shadows of Mission Work in the Far East: Being the Record of Observations Made During a Visit to the Southern Presbyterian Missions in Japan, China, and Korea in the year 1897 (1899)

  • Thomas Cary Johnson, A Brief Sketch of the Missions of the Southern Presbyterian Church (1895)

  • Henry Francis Williams, In Four Continents: A Sketch of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (1910)

Africa

China

  • Hampden Coit DuBose, Preaching in Sinim (1893)

  • John Leighton Stuart, Fifty Years in China: The Memoirs of John Leighton Stuart, Missionary and Ambassador (1954)

  • Henry Francis Williams, Along the Grand Canal: The Mid-China Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1911) and North of the Yangtze: The North Kiangsu Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1911)

  • Samuel Isett Woodbridge, Sr., Fifty Years in China: Being Some Account of the History and Conditions in China and of the Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States there from 1867 to the present day (1919)

Japan

  • Lois Johnson Erickson, The White Fields of Japan: Being Some Account of the History and Conditions in Japan and of the Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States there from 1885 to the Present Day (1923)

  • Egbert Watson Smith, Present Day Japan (1920)

  • Henry Francis Williams, In the Mikado’s Empire: The Japan Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1912)

Korea

  • Anabel Major Nisbet, Day In and Day Out in Korea: Being Some Account of the Mission Work that has been carried on in Korea since 1892 by the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1920)

  • Henry Francis Williams, In the Hermit Land: The Korea Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1912)

Latin America

  • William Alfred Ross, Sunrise in Aztec Land: Being an Account of the Mission Work that has been carried on in Mexico since 1874 by the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1922)

  • Henry Francis Williams, In Mexico and Cuba: The Near-Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1912)

South America

  • Henry Francis Williams, In South America: The Brazil Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1910) and In Brazil: Our Missions in Brazil (1917)