Introduction

Words: Fran­ces R. Ha­ver­gal, 1866.

Music: Mas­ter’s Praise Scott Wer­de­baugh, 2017 (🔊 pdf nwc).

MASTER’S PRAISE
© 2017 Scott Werdebaugh
This mu­sic may be free­ly re­pro­duced or pub­lished for Chris­tian wor­ship or de­vo­tions, pro­vid­ed it is not al­tered, & this no­tice is on each co­py. All oth­er rights re­served.

I felt that I had not writ­ten any­thing spe­cial­ly in praise to Christ. A long­ing to do so pos­sessed me. I want­ed to show forth His praise to Him, not to oth­ers, ev­en if no mor­tal ev­er saw it, He would see ev­ery line, would have known the un­writ­ten long­ing to praise Him ev­en if words failed utterly.

It des­cribes, as most of my po­ems do, ra­ther rem­in­is­cence than pre­sent feeling. I can­not trans­cribe it at the mo­ment of strong feel­ing. I re­call it after­wards and write it down.

O Master! It is per­haps my fa­vo­rite ti­tle be­cause it im­plies rule and sub­mission; and this is what love craves. Men may feel dif­fer­ent­ly, but a true wo­man’s sub­mis­sion is in­se­pa­ra­ble from deep love.

I wrote it in the cold and tw­ilight in the lit­tle back room, un­car­pet­ed, at Shares­hill Par­son­age, Dec. 31, 1866. I be­gan my book [Min­is­try of Song] with the ex­press­ion of its de­vo­tion to God’s glo­ry, I wished to close it with a dis­tinc­tive as­crip­tion of praise to Je­sus, and, there­fore, with­out any he­si­ta­tion, at once de­cid­ed up­on plac­ing Ado­ra­tion [this hymn] where it stands.

Frances Ha­ver­gal
Julian, p. 844