Scripture Verse

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Psalm 33:12

Introduction

Words: Ad­in Bal­lou, in The Gos­pel Psalm­ist, ed­it­ed by John G. Ad­ams & S. B. Ball (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: J. M. Ush­er, 1861), page 289.

Music: Or­land Will­iam Ar­nold, in The Am­eri­can Vo­cal­ist, ed­it­ed by Dan­iel H. Mans­field (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Thomp­son, Bi­ge­low & Brown, 1849), page 3 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pic­ture of Ar­nold (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),

portrait
Adin Ballou (1803–1890)

Lyrics

Not in­di­vid­ual souls alone
Require the new and heav­en­ly birth,
Society in sin up-grown,
Needs Chris­tian­iz­ing o’er the earth.

True right­eous­ness must be the same,
For man com­bined or iso­late;
The happiness of all its aim,
In fa­mi­ly, or teem­ing state.

The prin­ci­ples by Je­sus taught
Must be imp­ar­tial­ly ap­plied.
And so­cial in­sti­tu­tions brought,
With laws divine to co­in­cide.

’Tis ours to speed this glo­ri­ous change,
This re­no­va­tion to pre­pare,
Its in­tro­duc­tion to ar­range,
And in its future tri­umphs share.

Thus Heav’n and earth shall be re­newed,
By God’s re­gen­er­at­ing word,
Our way­ward race to Christ sub­dued,
And Ed­en’s har­mo­ny re­stored.