Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Still touching lives

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In 1990, the president of Columbia International University (then called Columbia Bible College), Robertson McQuilkin resigned from his position to care for his wife Muriel who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. The words from his resignation letter still touches lives around the world.

Most recently, those words were featured on a Christmas-themed radio program of Proverbs 31 Ministries. To hear the program go to:
http://proverbs31radio.blogspot.com/2008/12/priceless-gift.html


Today, McQuilkin serves as president emeritus of CIU.

Posted on CIUNet by Bob Holmes

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