“Fight the Good Fight”

“Be strong!

We are not here to play, to dream and drift;

We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.

Shun not the struggle, face it, ‘tis God’s gift.

Be strong, be strong!

“Be strong!

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,

How hard the battle goes, the day how long;

Faint not, fight on!  Tomorrow comes the song”

-       Maltbie D. Babcock[1]

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[1] Maltbie Davenport Babcock was born in Syracuse, New York in 1858. He at­tend­ed Syr­a­cuse Un­i­ver­si­ty and Au­burn The­o­log­ic­al Sem­in­ary. He ranked high as a stu­dent and par­ti­ci­pat­ed in both ath­let­ic and musical ac­ti­vi­ties. Tall, broad shoul­dered, and mus­cu­lar, he was pre­s­ident of the base­ball team, an ex­pert pitch­er, and a good swim­mer. He played sev­er­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, di­rect­ed the school or­ches­tra, and played the or­gan and com­posed for it. He was a sing­er and lead­er of the glee club. He could do im­per­so­na­tions, was clev­er at draw­ing, and had a knack with tools. He was al­so an av­id fish­er­man.

His first pas­to­rate was at the First Pres­by­te­r­ian Church, Lock­port, New York. In 1886, he was called to Brown Me­mor­i­al Church, Bal­ti­more, Mar­y­land, where he of­ten coun­seled stu­dents at Johns Hop­kins Univer­si­ty. As his reputation spread, he was asked to preach at col­leg­es all over Amer­i­ca. Bab­cock was not a great the­o­lo­gian or deep think­er, but had a tal­ent for pre­sent­ing spir­it­ua­l and eth­ic­al truths with fresh­ness and ef­fect. In do­ing this, he was aid­ed by his agile mind, wide range of knowledge, dra­ma­tic abil­i­ty, speech flu­en­cy, and mag­ne­tic per­son­al­i­ty. Af­ter al­most 14 years in Bal­ti­more, Bab­cock was called to the pres­ti­gious pas­tor­ate of the Brick Presbyteran Church in New York Ci­ty, to fill the va­can­cy left by the re­tire­ment of Hen­ry Van Dyke. Babcock had been there on­ly 18 months when he made a trip to the Ho­ly Land. While on the trip, in Naples, Italy, he died of bru­cel­losis. Though Bab­cock pub­lished no­thing dur­ing his life, his wife Cath­er­ine col­lect­ed and pub­lished ma­ny of his writ­ings af­ter his un­time­ly death.  (Source: cyberhymnal.org)