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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
April 1, 1984
Dear Brethren in Christ:
This is a special personal letter to you members of God's Church, written
in
between monthly Co-Worker letters.
I recently visited my brother, Dwight, who composed all of the music in
our
Church hymnals except for three or four songs we felt worthy of being included.
He has devoted the last 35 years of his life to composing the music of these
hymns
for us. For years, even before that, I had felt we needed our own hymn book,
with
words from the Psalms (the word Psalms means songs) and other scriptures from
the Bible.
I had noticed that in the hymn books sung in Protestant churches, the
words
are not scriptural, and sing the praises of the congregations of people instead
of
the praises of God.
Wherever I travel over the whole earth, visiting our churches on all
continents, I find you brethren all enjoying the same hymns and the same music
with great joy and gladness.
Perhaps most of you have not even realized it was my own brother, 12
years
younger than I, who produced the beautiful music we have all come to love and
joy in. On this recent visit to speak to the churches in the area of Vancouver,
Canada, I stopped off to spend a few minutes with my brother. It was probably
our
last meeting together in this life.
I found him in the last stages of cancer in the bone structure, going
through
the marrow of the bones. He is a little discouraged, not realizing what a real
success his life has been, and with the mortgage on his home still not paid off
as
he faces the end of this life. He is not expected to live much longer.
He has not had the opportunity to see and hear you brethren in
congregations all over the world singing with such joy the music he composed for
you, and I'm sure he can have no realization of how greatly he has contributed
to
God's Church and consequently what a successful life he has lived. He will be
80,
if he survives until September 15. He has continued up to the present to compose
more and more new hymns, most of which have not been as yet published. These
may come out in a new hymnal book, much enlarged over our present book.