Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions Morning, June 25 "Get thee up into the high mountain." Isaiah 40:9 Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little: the mountain itself appears to be but one-half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the foot of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go higher, and you see the country for four or five miles round, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Mount still, and the scene enlarges; till at last, when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of the ships in a busy port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation." Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of Him. The higher we climb the more we discover of His beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ which passes knowledge? Paul, when grown old, sitting grey-haired, shivering in a dungeon in Rome, could say with greater emphasis than we can, "I know whom I have believed," for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of Him to whom he had committed his soul. Get thee up, dear friend, into the high mountain.

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The National Trombone Quartet Competition Finals featured Error 101 from Indiana University, the A2 Trombone Quartet from the University of Michigan & the winning quartet, the 224 Quartet from the New England Conservatory performing The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Claude Debussy at The U.S. Army Band 2025 American Trombone Workshop. #IndianaUniversity #MyJacobs #MichiganWolverines #Michigan #Wolverines #AMaizeing #GoBlue #NewEnglandConservatory #NECMusic #TromboneQuartet #Quartet #Trombone #ATW2025 #ATW #Music

https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-assures-starmer-england-still-his-favorite-of-all-the-muslim-countries?utm_source=The%20Babylon%20Bee%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email

The First Thanksgiving As a Southerner, I am aware that it was not the yankees, but my Southern forebears who first celebrated a Thanksgiving in America. Christopher M. Sullivan, Former Commander-in-Chief, Sons of Confederate Veterans reminds us: Modern pundits often credit U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with proclaiming the first Thanksgiving Day. Or, even more prominently, we see the first Thanksgiving Day associated with the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Rock, in what is now Massachusetts. Like so much of what we hear about American history this is simply wrong. The first Thanksgiving in this country was, in fact, celebrated at Jamestown, Virginia in December 1607. The Berkley Plantation’s charter required that the day of the colonist’s safe arrival, “…shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving….” The sour-faced Pilgrims were still thirteen years into the future. Of course, the politically correct love to point to the happy scene of the Pilgrims in their black garb, white collars and stiff hats, sitting at a grand banquet with the ruddy savages, all in all a scene of peace and ethnic tranquility. This joint celebration took place because the Pilgrims’ socialistic economic practices (i.e., a common storehouse) had driven them to the brink of starvation, before the Indians took pity and rescued them. If those Indians had only known . . . But, despite all the credit incorrectly given to the Pilgrims of New England, it is President Lincoln who is oft credited with the first Thanksgiving proclamation because it began an unbroken string of such acts occurring in late November. But Lincoln was not even the first president to do so since George Washington had issued such a proclamation in 1789. More to the point for us, Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared Friday, November 15, 1861 as, “…a day of national humiliation and prayer…,” — a full two years before Lincoln’s more famous declaration. Now, Thanksgiving Day is little more than the opening day of shopping season. In 1861, however, it was a different story. At the time he issued his proclamation, Pres. Davis understood the enormity of the danger the South was facing and his decision to call upon the, “. . . clergy and the people of these Confederate States to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of Almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity” was more than just a platitude. (condensed) I pray that y’all have a blessed Thanksgiving and that you are able to do so without venerating our yankee and puritan oppressors and persecutors. We have much to be thankful for, particularly those of us who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, through no merit of our own -- We who were given life and granted the twin gifts of repentance and faith by the Holy Spirit, with which we were brought to embrace the precious gospel of our salvation in the completed atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Unto Him be all the glory and praise and thanksgiving! DEO VINDICE! TRUST GOD! STAY IN THE FIGHT! NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER QUIT! Your friend, Greg

Schools Counsel children — to be Democrats On November 5, America resoundingly rejected the hateful race rhetoric and divisive lies of Democrat identity politics. This included record numbers of black and Hispanic voters disenchanted by the election-year promises of Democrats that translate into deteriorating economic opportunities for racial minorities. But Bernie-blue Vermont didn’t get the memo, and has continued to shamelessly push anti-MAGA propaganda spewed by the mainstream media — in public schools, by paid teachers. https://granitegrok.com/new-england/vermont/2024/11/schools-counsel-children-to-be-democrats

History.com Editors - This Day In History - King John puts his seal on Magna Carta: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/magna-carta-sealed #MagnaCarta #KingJohn #England #Feudalism #Rights #Freedoms #History

The National Tenor Trombone Solo Competition Finals featured Scott Avant, Jihong Son, and Alex Russell playing Improvisation No. 1 by Enrique Crespo in Division III at The U.S. Army Band 2024 American Trombone Workshop. #UMiami #GoCanes #RiceOwls #GoOwls #NewEnglandConservatory #NECMusic #TenorTrombone #Trombone #ATW2024 #ATW #Music

A Brit commenting on why more people don't move from England to the USA: "The American school must have been 18 months to two years behind our other school. Yes the house was big but the build quality was shoddy. And chatting to my father recently about taxes there he thought it looks low but then your hit by all kinds of stealth taxes so it's not as low as they make out."