Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.
Romans 8:38–39
Words: Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, second series (London: James Nisbet, 1861), pages 52–54. This hymn was sung at the 2004 funeral of American president Ronald Reagan.
Music: Brookfield Thomas B. Southgate, 1855 (🔊 pdf nwc).
Alternate Tunes:
If you know where to get a good picture of Southgate (head-and-shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),
O love of God, how strong and true!
Eternal and yet ever new;
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.
O love of God, how deep and great!
Far deeper than man’s deepest hate;
Self-fed, self-kindled, like the light,
Changeless, eternal, infinite.
O heav’nly love, how precious still,
In days of weariness and ill!
In nights of pain and helplessness,
To heal, to comfort, and to bless.
O wide embracing, wondrous love,
We read Thee in the sky above,
We read Thee in the earth below,
In seas that swell, and streams that flow.
We read Thee in the flowers, the trees,
The freshness of the fragrant breeze,
The song of birds upon the wing,
The joy of summer and of spring.
We read Thee best in Him who came
To bear for us the cross of shame;
Sent by the Father from on high,
Our life to live, our death to die.
We read Thee in the manger-bed,
On which His infancy was laid;
And Nazareth that love reveals,
Nestling amid its lonely hills.
We read Thee in the tears once shed,
Over doomed Salem’s guilty head,
In the cold tomb of Bethany,
Ana blood-drops of Gethsemane.
We read Thy power to bless and save,
E’en in the darkness of the grave;
Still more in resurrection light,
We read the fullness of Thy might.
O love of God, our shield and stay
Through all the perils of our way;
Eternal love, in Thee we rest,
Forever safe, forever blest!