Scripture Verse

I will cleanse them from all their iniquity. Jeremiah 33:8

Introduction

portrait
James H. Wallis
1861–1940

Words: James H. Wall­is, 1881.

Music: Ma­drid (Carr) tra­di­tional Span­ish me­lo­dy, ar­ranged by Ben­ja­min Carr, 1824 (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Benjamin Carr
1768–1831

Origin of the Hymn

When I was a young man in my twen­ti­eth year, I wrote a po­em to which I paid but lit­tle at­ten­tion. Some­one saw it and set it to mu­sic. It ap­peared a sim­ple thing at the time… but some­how there was that some­thing in it that struck a po­pu­lar chord in the hearts of the pe­ople, and it will live on af­ter I have passed away…it was such a small ef­fort. There must have been some par­ti­cu­lar ap­peal or in­spi­ra­tion­al set­ting in it, or it would not have been so uni­ver­sal­ly loved.

Lyrics

Come, ye child­ren of the Lord,
Let us sing with one ac­cord,
Let us raise a joy­ful strain
To our Lord, who soon will reign
On this earth, when it shall be
Cleansed from all ini­qui­ty;
When all men from sin will cease,
And will live in love and peace.

O, how joy­ful it will be
When our Sav­ior we shall see!
When in splen­dor He’ll des­cend,
Then all wick­ed­ness shall end.
O what songs we then will sing
To our Sav­ior, Lord and king!
O what love will then bear sway,
When our fears shall flee away!

All ar­rayed in spot­less white,
We will dwell ’mid truth and light.
We will sing the songs of praise;
We will shout in joy­ous lays.
Earth shall then be cleansed from sin.
Every liv­ing thing ther­ein
Shall in love and beau­ty dwell;
Then with joy each heart will swell.