Scripture Verse

Seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came, if haply He might find any thing thereon: and when He came to it, he found nothing but leaves. Mark 11:13

Introduction

Words: Lu­cy E. Ak­er­man, in the New York Chris­tian Ob­serv­er, cir­ca 1858. The words were sug­gest­ed by a ser­mon giv­en by M. D. Con­way.

Music: Si­las J. Vail (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pho­to of Ak­er­man or Vail (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),

The hymn was a sp­ecial fa­vo­rite at the ear­ly Moody and San­key meet­ings. I oft­en sang it as a so­lo for Mr. Moody’s le­cture on The Ho­ly Spir­it.

While sing­ing it in Birm­ing­ham a la­dy was con­vinced, as she told me af­ter­wards, that her life had been no­thing but leaves; and she then de­cid­ed to de­vote the rest of her life to res­cu­ing her lost sis­ters. She se­cured a build­ing, which she called The Res­cue Home, and for years she ga­thered in poor, wretch­ed girls from the streets of the ci­ty, gave them em­ploy­ment, and taught them the way of life

Through her ef­forts hun­dreds of girls were saved. Af­ter her death the ci­ty of­fi­cials took up her work, em­ploy­ing oth­er women, who are still en­gaged in seek­ing the lost ones. On my last vis­it to Eng­land I had the plea­sure of vis­it­ing this res­cue home and sing­ing for the in­mates.


During the mis­sion in 1884, writes M. C. Broad­man, of Strat­ford, East Lon­don, the hymn ‘No­thing but leaves’ was oft­en sung. It brought con­vic­tion to one of the stew­ards. He said that this song dis­turbed him. For years he had been a pro­fess­or of re­li­gion, but with pe­rson­al in­ter­est in view.

He said he trust­ed that hence­forth there would be fruit as well as leaves in his life. From that time he has been an ar­dent Chris­tian wor­ker.

Sankey, pp. 206–07

Lyrics

Nothing but leaves! The Spir­it grieves
O’er years of wast­ed life;
O’er sins in­dulged while con­science slept,
O’er vows and pro­mis­es un­kept,
And reap, from years of strife—
Nothing but leaves!
Nothing but leaves!

Nothing but leaves! No ga­thered sheaves
Of life’s fair rip­en­ing grain:
We sow our seeds; lo! tares and weeds,
Words, idle words, for ear­nest deeds—
Then reap, with toil and pain,
Nothing but leaves!
Nothing but leaves!

Nothing but leaves! Sad me­mo­ry weaves
No veil to hide the past;
And as we trace our wea­ry way,
And count each lost and mis­spent day,
We sad­ly find at last—
Nothing but leaves!
Nothing but leaves!

Ah, who shall thus the Mas­ter meet,
And bring but wi­thered leaves?
Ah, who shall, at the Sav­ior’s feet,
Before the aw­ful judg­ment seat,
Lay down, for gold­en sheaves,
Nothing but leaves!
Nothing but leaves!