Thursday, February 13, 2014

Thu Feb 13th Todays News

SPC 'saved' without Abbott giving it $25 million. I call that a win .. for Abbott. Unless the ruinous corrupt union activity is curbed more jobs will be lost. Shorten moves to ensure more jobs are lost. Hoffman died from drugs, best not to celebrate drug use. Bush critic convicted for many things. Clarence Thomas notes the abuse dominating left argument. More AWU evidence seized. Why save worker jobs when workers refuse to help themselves? 
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Hatches
Matches
Despatches
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Wrong crusade, wrong audience. But Josie Cashman is right on the Left’s new racism

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (6:17pm)

Josie Cashman, a lawyer and businesswoman who identifies as Aboriginal, gave an address to hundreds of federal public servants in Canberra yesterday which cheered me on one point and disappointed me on three.
First, the good part:

Our modern Indigenous leaders are very, very courageous… [Last] year the Chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council was subject to a much-publicised raft of racial slurs on social media, including being called “Uncle Tom”, for his willingness to advise a Coalition government on solving the problems that face our people. This behavior ... is fuelled by the far Left for its own agenda.
These groups promote and encourage conspiracy theories that the Government and Australian people are against Aboriginal people and that we continue to be victims of this society. Under this world view, every problem faced by Indigenous people is the result of bad things done by European colonists and assimilation into western cultures. The value of so called “western” influences to Indigenous people – like mainstream education and economic development – is questioned.
Disadvantage and suffering have become the defining characteristics of the far left. Institutionalised welfare is a key policy platform for them. Any suggestion that welfare dependence has had negative impacts on Indigenous people is not tolerated. Underpinning all of this is an idealised concept of traditional Indigenous people not “corrupted” by civilization or development. There is an old expression to describe this – the “noble savage”.
How can we build mutual respect in an environment where fear and distrust of government and the Australian people is encouraged? How can we move on to healing when there are people who want to define us as damaged? This is a cancerous philosophy.
This is the most destructive form of racism and is promoted by the far Left to feed into their ideology that western free market democracy is wrong and we have to keep Indigenous Australians as noble savages. It is this ideology that is stopping Indigenous Australians coming into the economic mainstream. Labelling Aboriginal and Torres Strait People as disadvantaged and victims sets extremely low expectations in terms of employment, business capacity and education. The welfare mentality is the greatest challenge inhibiting our people to rise up. This ideology is the height of discrimination and it is destroying our cultural values which embraced hard work, taking responsibility and contributing to community. This threat from the far Left is what I call intellectual racism…
This ideology is also totally disrespectful to the Indigenous leaders who had a dream for their families and communities of coming together with all Australians.
The only thing I would add is that Aboriginal poverty is to a large extent the natural result of traditional Aboriginal culture. If you want Western standards of health and wealth, Western standards of education and work-habits are essential.
But now to the three aspects of the speech that disturb me greatly and undercut Cashman’s appeal to fight the new racism of the Left.
The first is one my lawyers tell me I cannot discuss, thanks to absurd laws against free speech that make it dangerous to oppose one particular aspect of the New Racism..
The second is this, from Cashman’s speech:

And now our Parliament is preparing to champion a constitutional amendment to recognise Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution. These symbolic steps demonstrate the goodwill of Australia towards its first peoples and their descendants. On the other hand the victimhood label is wrong and harmful for our futures… Let us now rewrite wrongs and recognize the first Australians in the best country in the world.

Cashman earlier deplored the victim status imposed on Aborigines, attacked division by race and urged a “coming together with all Australians”. But in the next breath she insists on a constitutional recognition - one which divides us by “race” - to “rewrite wrongs”. She is in fact feeding the victim industry and new racism she has denounced.
Third is this, addressed - to repeat - to federal public servants, apparently at the request or with the permission of their political or public service masters:
You have a choice to reinstate hope in your professional capacity as an Australian Public Servant and as a member of the Australian community. You have the opportunity to bring everyone together as never before and recognize the first peoples of this beautiful country.
Public servants are meant to be apolitical. They are not ideological crusaders, especially not in the service of such a divisive cause. This appeal is as inappropriate as Labor appeals to public servants to get with the global warming faith.
I am very worried by this agenda of the Abbott Government. It will divide us for no good cause, and divert us from the very hard, practical work that needs doing to end the horrific Aboriginal disadvantage.   
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Labor hit the economy and now runs

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (6:04pm)

August 2013. Labor Treasurer Chris Bowen predicts the unemployment rate in 2014 under Labor’s policies:
The mini-budget predicts unemployment will rise from 5.6 per cent to 6.25 per cent which would see the jobless queue climb from 709,000 to around 800,000.
February 2014:
The unemployment rate hit 6 per cent in January...
Labor leader Bill Shorten:
The Abbott government has got serious questions to answer… Over 60,000 full-time jobs have been lost since the Abbott Government was elected.
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Seems SPC didn’t need Abbott’s $25 million, after all

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (5:43pm)

Why is this now enough to satisfy Coca-Cola Amatil:
The $22 million from [Victorian] taxpayers will be part of a $100 million upgrade of the Shepparton plant. SPC will contribute $78 million to complete a $100 million co-investment between the government and the company.
Two weeks ago Coca-Cola Amatal said it needed twice as much from taxpayers to save the cannery:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has [rejected] taxpayer support for fruit processor SPC Ardmona ...  The 93-year-old Victorian company wanted a $25 million federal grant, topped up by $25 million from the Victorian government and its own $150 million investment, for new product development and technology to prop up its operation.
Looks like Abbott saved us $25 million. Let’s hope the Victorian Government didn’t just waste it. 
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Boyer wins alarmist prize: coal to destroy “all of humanity”

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (9:41am)

Global warming - propaganda

Peter Boyer sets the gold standard for climate alarmism in the Hobart Mercury in a paean of praise for protesters trying to shut our coal industry:
Underlying all these campaigns is a real fear that a protracted coal boom will bring down the curtain on civilisation… We forget that every boom ends in a bust, and every get-rich-quick scheme has losers, in this case all of humanity and its life-support system.
Can anyone beat that?
(Thanks to reader Tassierooster.) 
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How Toyota unions killed their members’ jobs

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (9:33am)

This culture of union bastardry must change, or even more jobs will be lost:

The former head of Toyota Australia and one of its top supplier executives say combative industrial relations helped trigger the company’s decision to stop making cars.
John Conomos, who worked at Toyota in senior roles for almost 30 years including as executive chairman, said he could understand the company’s frustration at union resistance to changing workplace entitlements and practices…
“The old fashioned ideas of labour unions simply must change,” he said…
Gary Stewart, the former general manager of a Toyota “keiretsu” supplier, Aisin Australia, said the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union gave the company a “two-fingered salute” when it blocked workplace changes in court rather than negotiate.
It was the last straw for the company and gave ammunition to “hawks” at Toyota who supported the pull-out in a finely balanced decision, he said.
“If it is not the only cause it is certainly at the top of the file."My opinion is that if Toyota had broken through its IR issues - then most probably Toyota would have tried to continue in Australia.”
Paul Sheehan:

After an hour of questions on Tuesday, Shorten moved a censure motion: ‘’I move … that the House censures the Prime Minister for failing to stand up and fight for Australian jobs at Toyota, Electrolux, Simplot, Holden, Qantas, Ford, the Gove alumina refinery, SPC Ardmona and countless other small businesses around Australia …’’
As Shorten introduced his censure motion, the press gallery rapidly emptied....
A few minutes later came the most damaging accusation of all, via the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne: ‘’We have legislation before the Parliament to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to establish a Registered Organisations Commission, and we have announced a royal commission into union governance and corruption, all of which the Leader of the Opposition … is opposing. He cannot rise above his background. He is a union official supporting union officials. He is running a protection racket for a protection racket.’’
Harsh. But it sums up the collateral damage Shorten is suffering from the rolling sequence of union scandals.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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No ribbons for what killed Hoffman

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (9:04am)

Paul Murray:
Remember when AIDS started to take the lives of famous people and other famous people started wearing red ribbons to spread the word about safe sex and finding a cure?
There is a new scourge that’s killing famous people and thousands more every day, but they won’t say a word about it. They won’t wear ribbons and no one will take the cause on as their own. It’s drugs.
At this year’s Oscars there will be a very moving tribute to the remarkable Philip Seymour Hoffman but it won’t mention what killed him. Drugs.
Wouldn’t it be great if a huge star stood on that stage and said to a billion people: “Don’t do drugs.”
Instead they will ...  celebrate a movie (that I loved), The Wolf of Wall Street, completely ignoring that for most of the three hours the main character snorts, smokes and takes a truckload of drugs.
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With climate scientists like this, no wonder we doubt

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (8:48am)

Global warming - dud predictions

YOU would think scientists of the NSW Climate Change Research Centre had done enough damage to their warmist crusade.
A month ago, its Professor Chris Turney got his ship of researchers stuck in Antarctic sea ice he had claimed was melting away.
“Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up,” Turney’s expedition wailed.
In fact Turney’s team — planning to examine parts of the Antarctic “highly susceptible to melting and collapse from ocean warming” — apparently hadn’t realised sea ice there had grown over three decades to record levels.
How we laughed.

Turney’s climate centre, at the University of NSW, sponsored this disaster, which ended with two icebreakers rescuing the mortified professor and his warming crusaders.
It’s farce like that which helps explain why the CSIRO reported last week only 47 per cent of Australians buy its spin that the climate is changing and we’re to blame.
Australians now rate global warming of “low importance”, the CSIRO sighed, and warmists faced “the challenge of finding the right language” to gee them up. But up bobs another Climate Change Research Centre scientist to show the warmists’ problem isn’t the “right language” but the false hype.
(Read full article here.) 
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Bush critic convicted over corruption

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (8:47am)

Remember how the media treated New Orleans Democrat mayor Ray Nagin as a serious man with serious criticisms of George Bush - the Republican president who was made the scapegoat for the chaos after Hurricane Katrina?
It was rubbish, of course, as I tried to point out at the time:
By now, hurricane buffs were posting warnings on the internet, telling citizens of New Orleans to flee… But one crucial man seemed not to be listening—the (black) Democrat Mayor of New Orleans, former cable executive Ray Nagin, responsible for law and order in his city, and for its evacuation in a crisis.
He seemed oddly determined to play it cool.
So it was only on Saturday afternoon, less than 48 hours before Katrina was due to hit, that he finally told the people of New Orleans: “We want you to take this a little more seriously and start moving.” A little?
Those who needed a shelter of “last resort” should go to the city’s Superdome, he added, and “bring small quantities of food for three or four days”. Small?
Only at 5pm did he order a voluntary evacuation, even though the National Hurricane Centre was warning that Katrina was “a worst-case scenario”....
That night, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco called Nagin at home—interrupting his dinner, he noted—and urged him to call the Hurricane Centre for bad news about Katrina.
Bush called, too, and appealed for a mandatory evacuation. He seemed to take the threat more seriously than did the mayor.
But only the next morning, with Katrina less than 24 hours away, did Nagin finally order his city to be emptied. Yet he did nothing to make sure it did.
He sent no police through the streets to sound the alarm. He did not empty the hospitals. He sent no buses to take poorer citizens from this poorest of cities—people with no car or money to flee. In fact, more than 200 of his school buses were later found neatly parked, still in their depot, up to their useless engines in flood water.
So when Katrina struck on Monday, 100,000 people—largely the sickest and poorest—were still in their doomed city, half in the Superdome and convention centre. There they found no chemical toilets, few medics, no water purification equipment, not enough police and little food or water. The 26,000 at the Superdome, for instance, had been left food just enough for 15,000 for three days.
All this was Nagin’s responsibility. Not Bush’s. And it explains those pitiful scenes of stranded people begging for food.
And now:
Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ...  was found guilty of 20 out of 21 counts of bribery, money laundering, fraud and filing false tax returns…
The charges detailed more than $200,000 in bribes to the mayor, and his family members allegedly received a vacation in Hawaii; first-class airfare to Jamaica; private jet travel and a limousine for New York City; and cellular phone service. In exchange, businesses that coughed up cash for Nagin and his family won more than $5 million in city contracts, according to the January 2013 indictment.
The earliest of the charges date from before Katrina, which struck when Nagin had been in office for about three years....
Supporters credited Nagin’s sometimes-profane demands for aid from Washington with helping reveal the botched federal response to the storm—a fiasco that embarrassed the George W. Bush administration and led to billions of federal dollars being poured into Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts.
But ... a congressional committee criticized him for delaying evacuation orders, and his frantic description of post-storm New Orleans as a violent wasteland with up to 10,000 dead turned out to be greatly exaggerated. 
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Clarence Thomas: the worst abuse came from the Left

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (8:19am)

The politics of race

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US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says the worse racism he suffered was from Left-wing elites:
The worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, [were] by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia… To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white school. Rarely did the issue of race come up.

It strikes me that blacks who are conservative cop it worst, vilified by the Left for not conforming to their black stereotype.
And Thomas says too much fuss is made about race, anyway:
My sadness is that we are probably today more race and difference-conscious that I was in the 1960s when I went to school… Now, name a day it doesn’t come up…
Differences in race, differences in sex. Somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah. Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person. Somebody has said something that has hurt their feelings or did something to them — left them out. That’s a part of the deal.
UPDATE
On the very same day Thomas speaks, a (black) Democrat politician from Alabama demonstrates the racism of the Left:
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UPDATE
Bess Price, a conservative Aboriginal politician from the Northern Territory, has been vilified by the Left, often in racist terms:
Because I have spoken out on this issue and others close to my heart, I have been routinely attacked by the left. Professor Larissa Behrendt claimed that what I say is more offensive than watching a man having sex with a horse. Her white professional protester colleague, Paddy Gibson, told the world that I was only doing it for the money and frequent flyer points. The Queensland educationist, Chris Sarra, said that I was ‘pet Aborigine’ who only said what the government wanted me to say. Chris Graham, the white editor of Tracker magazine called me a ‘grub’. A white woman in Victoria, Leonie Chester, calls herself Nampijinpa Snowy River, on the internet. She tells the world that my people, the Warlpiri, are ‘her mob’. She and her friends have obscenely insulted me on the internet, over and over. Marlene Hodder, a white woman from Alice Springs and her protesting friend, Barbara Shaw, have called me a liar several times.
The Crikey blogger, Bob Gosford, who calls himself ‘the Northern Myth’, calls me Bess ‘Gaol is Good for Aboriginal People’ Price and accuses me of ‘vaguely malevolent and populist buffoonery that is designed to capture the attention of the tutt-tutterers and spouted by politicians that inevitably have a short tenure in power’. In Brisbane, Tiga Bayles, using an Indigenous community owned radio station, told the whole world that I am ‘a head nodding Jacky-Jacky for the government’ and that I am ‘totally offensive and arrogant’ because I do not want people like Tiga who know nothing about us, speaking about my people. He and his friends laughed as they told the world that I am only interested in money. 
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Shorten: insulting to tell Aborigines “obey the law”

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (8:12am)

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Not so much interest in these bruvvers, though

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (8:03am)

Niki Savva on the curiously incurious journalists who were once very curious indeed about a politician’s siblings:
WHENEVER he is asked, and it has only happened occasionally, and only recently at that, Brendan O’Connor reckons that only people who live in caves don’t know Michael is his brother.
Brendan is Bill Shorten’s spokesman for employment and workplace relations, and Michael is the national secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. Yet I know people very well informed about politics, residing in genteel suburbs, who did not know this until the past few days. If they knew anything, it was that Michael was Julia Gillard’s ex-boyfriend.
There are other high-profile siblings with political connections whose relationships have been remorselessly dissected and analysed. Tony Abbott and his gay sister Christine Forster, for instance, with endless questioning of whether she can change her brother’s mind on same-sex marriage so she can wed her partner. Or the former federal treasurer Peter Costello and his brother, Tim. Entire forests were felled so journalists could brood about why Tim’s “compassion” had not rubbed off on his brother.
Brendan says that in government he recused himself from any decisions where conflict existed and this is not to suggest either of the O’Connors has misbehaved, merely to note that in among all the other connections, webs, liaisons, and positionings which make up labour and Labor, this one has received surprisingly scant attention.
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Police seize more AWU scandal evidence

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (7:47am)

Police seem to be taking very seriously a case that much of the Canberra press gallery dismissed:
VICTORIAN police have seized hundreds of union documents locked in a Perth storage unit that could provide important evidence for their investigation into the involvement of Julia Gillard’s former boyfriend in an alleged fraud.
The Australian Workers Union confirmed yesterday that Victorian police had executed search warrants for archives kept in the storage unit, and removed 12 boxes that could assist an investigation into former union official Bruce Wilson and the AWU Workplace Reform Association “slush fund”.
Once again I am reminded of this passage in Jacqueline Kent’s biography of Julia Gillard, and once again I wonder who those senior gallery journalists were:
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(Gillard denies she did anything wrong or knew what her boyfriend was up to with the slush fund she helped him set up. She says she paid for her renovations herself) 
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Why help workers who won’t help themselves

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (7:08am)

WHY should taxpayers spend a dollar more to save the jobs of Toyota workers who refuse to save themselves?
And why does Labor leader Bill Shorten falsely claim our handouts are stingy, when they’re the world’s biggest?
Consider this timeline for Toyota Australia, which announced this week it would stop making cars here in 2017.
(Read full article here.) 
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Charlie McAdam and the “stolen generations”

Andrew Bolt February 13 2014 (5:59am)

The "stolen generations"

Last night on 2GB I said the ”stolen generations” was a myth that had killed Aboriginal children.
A listener then raised the case of Charlie McAdam, father of the AFL footballer Gilbert, and said to be a member of the “stolen generations”, too.
I could not remember McAdam’s details on the spot, and at first wrongly suggested he was from the Northern Territory, where the Federal Court had ruled on a famous “stolen generations” test case, finding there was no policy to remove Aboriginal children in the Territory just for racist reasons, rather than out of welfare concerns for the children. One of the two claimants (Peter Gunner) had been sent voluntarily by his mother to a school in Alice Springs, and the other (Lorna Cubillo) had been found at a bush camp with her father long gone, her mother dead and her grandmother no longer with her.  Witnesses in the case who claimed they were stolen, too, were shown under cross-examination to have equally weak cases.
Every court case since on the “stolen generations”, including ones in Western Australia and South Australia, has come up with similar findings: that there was no policy to steal the claimant because they were Aboriginal. Lists provided by “stolen generations” propagandist Robert Manne of children allegedly stolen turned out to be profoundly misleading, failing to identify even 10 children stolen by officials because they were Aboriginal.
But back to Charlie McAdam. As I said at the end of the show, I’d remembered wrongly. He was from Western Australia, not the Northern Territory.
So was he, perhaps, stolen?
Here are the bare facts of his early life:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Charlie McAdam and the “stolen generations”'
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India Gate, New Delhi
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Events[edit]

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Holidays and observances[edit]

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“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13: 6-7
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 12: Morning
"For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." - 2 Corinthians 1:5
There is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales--in this side he puts his people's trials, and in that he puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to his crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit. One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart--he finds it full--he begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it. Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this--then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honour Jehovah. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.
Evening
"He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." - John 14:16
The Great Father revealed himself to believers of old before the coming of his Son, and was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the God Almighty. Then Jesus came, and the ever-blessed Son in his own proper person, was the delight of his people's eyes. At the time of the Redeemer's ascension, the Holy Spirit became the head of the present dispensation, and his power was gloriously manifested in and after Pentecost. He remains at this hour the present Immanuel--God with us, dwelling in and with his people, quickening, guiding, and ruling in their midst. Is his presence recognized as it ought to be? We cannot control his working; he is most sovereign in all his operations, but are we sufficiently anxious to obtain his help, or sufficiently watchful lest we provoke him to withdraw his aid? Without him we can do nothing, but by his almighty energy the most extraordinary results can be produced: everything depends upon his manifesting or concealing his power. Do we always look up to him both for our inner life and our outward service with the respectful dependence which is fitting? Do we not too often run before his call and act independently of his aid? Let us humble ourselves this evening for past neglects, and now entreat the heavenly dew to rest upon us, the sacred oil to anoint us, the celestial flame to burn within us. The Holy Ghost is no temporary gift, he abides with the saints. We have but to seek him aright, and he will be found of us. He is jealous, but he is pitiful; if he leaves in anger, he returns in mercy. Condescending and tender, he does not weary of us, but awaits to be gracious still.

Sin has been hammering my heart
Unto a hardness, void of love,
Let supplying grace to cross his art
Drop from above.
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Today's reading: Leviticus 13, Matthew 26:26-50 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Leviticus 13

Regulations About Defiling Skin Diseases
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 26:26-50

26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you...."

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