The title of this post is a reference to the venerable Anglican hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”, which begins with the following verse:
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
The words were written by William Whiting in 1860 and set to music by John B. Dykes in 1861. The hymn gained immediate popularity with the Royal Navy, resonating in the hearts of those who faced grave danger to hold together the far-flung nautical networks of the British Empire at the height of its power.
Some years ago the future Baron played this hymn on the organ during the funeral of a veteran of the U.S. Navy, at the request of the widow. She said it had been her husband’s favorite hymn.
“Eternal Father, Strong to Save” popped into my mind last night when I read the news that Bosch Fawstin has had to go into hiding. Mr. Fawstin won the grand prize and the “people’s choice” award at last weekend’s Muhammad Cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.
Now Mr. Fawstin, like so many other Motoon artists, is forced to go about his day-to-day activities in fear of his life.
And other cartoonists have already paid the ultimate price for “slandering the prophet of Islam”, notably those slaughtered back in January at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Funnily enough, the new editor of Charlie Hebdo has just repudiated Pamela Geller and other Counterjihad activists…
Or maybe it’s not so funny after all. Maybe the remaining staff at Charlie Hebdo have learned their lesson. Maybe they want to stay alive, and have decided to accept the ground rules of sharia in order to save their miserable kuffar skins and live as dhimmis in the new Islamic Republic of France.
Today comes word that the Islamic State has vowed to kill Pamela Geller.
It’s not hard to see why 95% of prominent American “conservatives” — or at least the talking heads and pundits who get their mugs on TV and their scribbles in the paper — have chosen to denounce last weekend’s AFDI event in Texas, or remain studiously silent. They, too, seem to have gotten the message: If you want to stay alive to enjoy the perks and privileges of your established comfortable position, don’t mess with Islam.
There is indeed peril on the sea for all those doughty sailors standing stalwart on the heaving deck of the Counterjihad. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Also: We’ve just come off our quarterly fundraiser, which prompts me to wonder how some of these endangered souls can afford to protect themselves. Bosch Fawstin received that well-deserved first prize in Garland, but it may not go very far towards paying for his personal security, which can be very expensive. Please visit his blog and click the “donate” button, or buy his Pigman books. Or both.
The same goes for other sharia opponents who are in imminent danger, including Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller.
Geert Wilders has managed to stay alive for ten years only by giving up all hope of a truly private life. He lives with armed bodyguards 24 hours a day.
How many more people will have to do the same?
And how many will be slaughtered before we finally prevail?
O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.
Yes, I have vivid memories of singing that on board HMS Victory (1765 warship)
as a teenager.
We are now a society that lacks the coping mechanisms for threats of violence, especially those backed by real hard core thuggery. Western culture is plagued by the fleas of ‘racism’, and cannot kill those ‘fleas’ because it has to respect all ‘insects’ equally.
Including the ones that carry the diseases that kill us…..
I read today that our First Lady said “museums are white people places”. The woman is a rich bigot. A whited sepulchre. Oh, and a bitter clinger: she has to either give up being among the corrupt elite or she has to surrender her whining. Stuck between a rock and a hard place is that woman…
He’s not in hiding. In fact, he’s not backing down. See his twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/BoschFawstin/status/595762558939832321
I noticed that. Left a reply. He’s got to be concerned, though. And I’ll bet local police are on alert.
ISIS in America supposedly has 70 followers and plans attacks in 5 states in the next 6 months VA, MD, CA, IL, and MI. So *anything* that happens in those places they’ll take credit for.
Bragging publicly is poor strategy.
Dymphna-
Notice Texas is now off their list?
If law enforcement spent as much time and effort going after Muslim jihadi terrorists as they did going after Scott Walker supporters then ISIS capabilities in the U.S. would be eliminated.
Michelle Obama said museums are white people places? Kidding? What kind of woman is she — don’t answer. I already know.
I’m having a hard time digesting what our country is coming to and again, don’t answer because I know. Will prayers change it?
Well. . . there used to be a saying “don’t Mess with Texas” and I hope that is still the case. I will be we, the hated people who live in the middle and have no class whatasoever, because we are so “stupid”, that will be the salvation of this country. If it’s not to late to save it.
“They, too, seem to have gotten the message: If you want to stay alive to enjoy the perks and privileges of your established comfortable position, don’t mess with Islam.”
They pray to gods of the underverse that they shall be eaten ………… last.
“They, too, seem to have gotten the message: If you want to stay alive to enjoy the perks and privileges of your established comfortable position, don’t mess with Islam.”
Islam would never target national personalities like Greta, Megyn or O’reilly. They aren’t that stupid because it would start waking up the populace and that’s the last thing CAIR and MB want. They prefer stealth jihad which has worked wonders.
No what the talking heads are afraid is getting cut off from the political class and ending up like Lou Dobbs – fired and turned into a nobody at Fox.
Now to the personages:
Trump is heavily involved in Dubai and is treated like royalty over there. Google “trump dubai”.
FoxNews has a Saudi Prince as a investor who has a direct line to Ailes. Money talks. Remember when they ran a special about the “no go zones” in France, well that Saudi prince got mad and read the riot act to Ailes and Fox News stopped mentioning them.
The rest of the GOP pundit class who sold out Geller aren’t Conservatives. Most were just fat cat mouthpieces for the Chambers of Commerce and globalism that mouthed support for hot button social issues for conservatives which cost them nothing. But what Geller did was unforgivable in their eyes, because she threw a monkey wrench into the machine and they don’t like that. The last thing they wanted was to be exposed for the frauds that they are.
The Saudi prince (Alwaleed bin Talal) divested himself of most of his Fox holdings. Last year, or the year before. He’s down to like 1/2 of a percent. No longer the deciding vote.
No, what’s going on at Fox must be explained by other factors. I don’t know what they might be.
I’m convinced that whatever is going on it comes down to some sort of “that would be bad for business” self-censorship decision.
Like you though I have no idea exactly what the limiting factor is. Is it purely based in market economics, or is there some bad for business social, legal, or political consequence that is being avoided? Is it explicitly threatened or just independently anticipated? Who knows?
Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days — the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.
— Winston Churchill, speaking at Harrow School, Oct. 29, 1941
About free speech – what’s in a name? I have watched TV drama series over the years in the UK: British ones, Scandinavian ones, French and a Belgian one. All the countries have Muslim minorities now and all the shows feature Muslim characters frequently. None of the characters is ever called Muhammed. I have never seen this discussed. Does this apparent taboo apply in the USA?
I remember the final verse of that hymn. When I was very young, I sang as a chorister in the Garrison Church of St Andrew in the Royal Marine Barracks, Eastney, Portsmouth. The verse was part of the Evensong service and was sung each week immediately after the Collect.
A few years later, I changed schools and was persuaded (dragooned!) into leaving St Andrews to sing in the choir of Portsmouth Cathedral.
I went back there last Autumn. Portsmouth now has its own Jihadis and the former Moderne Bingo Hall once owned by Jewish businessman Harry Garcia is now a mosque. There are many cities like Portsmouth in the UK today and the two major parties are so alike it is no surprise they are neck and neck in the polls.
One thing I recently discovered is that BOTH of them support the Istanbul Process. So, whether the UK electorate supports Tweedledee or Tweedledum, we are still going to get an islamic blasphemy law.
I am glad to be out of there.
HuffPo: 38 Million Homeless In ‘Worst’ Forced Displacement In A Generation, Report Finds …seeking refuge from Islamic hegemony whether through hijrah or war-Islam is the problem
The pen is mightier than the penalty.
The tune of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKMEl4HU0fA
is certainly moving, but could someone please explain
its first stanza:
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Here’s my paraphrase:
God, you are “strong to save”,
your arm has kept the turbulent ocean in check,
you command the depths of the ocean
to stay within the limits these depths have
set for themselves.
The word “own” seems to mean that the deep ocean
sets its own limits. What might those limits be,
and how could they possibly be violated?
But the big mystery is the phrase “strong to save”.
God is strong enough to save something,
but what is it that he saves (or decides not
to save)? The phrase “strong to save” is of
the same form as “reluctant to help”,
but what does it mean to be strong to do something?
In English English one can be ‘strong for peace’ or even ‘strong for strawberry jam (jelly)’. It is an idiom from the early part of the 20th century or earlier and not much in common usage now, it was sometimes used in my childhood in the 50’s.
It essentially means that one is more than keen for the verb/dative supplied