Alice in Wonderland with Isaac Watts. Who knew?

I was very surprised to discover that the original poem, changed by the caterpillar in Disney's Alice in Wonderland was actually an excerpt from Isaac Watts. You know, the hymn writer. I was reading christian biographies...something I just find so inspiring...and came across his childrens hymns...

"How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell,
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour, or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."

I often find, that while I might carry on intelligent conversation about various Christians in history...upon reading their biographies I am inspired by the lives they led; the trials in the details that without these thorough biographies no one would have even guessed about in so successful a life.

Although I'm fond of Watts hymns...especially When I Survey the Wondrous Cross and I Sing the Mighty Power of God... I was unaware that his life was so tragic. He became a preacher at 24 but by the time he was 30 he became so ill that he was an invalid for the rest of his life...some odd 20 years.

As he said...Isaac Watts lived, "the prisoner of ill-health and feebleness, but breathing forth, like a nightingale in the shade, those undying melodies, which will sing on while the world lasts."