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musical talent. I immediately asked him to compose two or three
hymns, setting words from the Psalms to music. It took some little
time, but they were good.
When we moved to Pasadena to found Ambassador College, in
1947, I asked my brother to devote full time to setting the words of
Psalms-and/or any other Scripture-to music in the four-part
harmony style of hymns. For some little time the Church, then small,
sang the first 12 or 15 hymns that had been composed. The Church
grew, and so did the number of hymns sung with God's own inspired
words.
When we were able to print our first Church of God hymnal, not
yet having a sufficient number of our own new hymns we filled out
our comparatively small hymnals with well-known Protestant hymns
whose words were not non-scriptural -even having to change the
words in a few instances. Gradually through the years succeeding
editions of our hymnal have contained fewer and fewer of the old
Protestant hymns, and more and more of those composed by my
brother. For the past few years our congregations have been singing
our own hymns almost entirely.
Now, at last, the time has come when we can omit the old Protes–
tant hymns almost altogether, with more new hymns of our own
added. We have retained two national hymns, and a few others
whose words are proper, which we feel our congregations would
want to sing occasionally.
It is, indeed, a happy achievement to have, at last, God's own
hymnal for God's own Church. It is a happy event, also, that we
now produce the hymnal with hard covers, a'nd make them available
to members to have in their own homes. I feel this is another mile–
stone for God's Church.