Scripture Verse

The Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. Jonah 4:6–7

Introduction

portrait
Charles J. Vincent, Jr. (1852–1934)

Words: Charles Wes­ley, Short Hymns on Se­lect Pas­sag­es of the Ho­ly Scrip­tures, Vol­ume 2 (Bris­tol, Eng­land: E. Far­ley, 1762), num­bers 1361 & 1362.

Music: Au­brey Charles J. Vin­cent, Jr. (1852–1934) (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a bet­ter pho­to of Beddome,

Lyrics

Our joy in a created good,
How soon it fades away,
Fades, at the morning hour bestowed,
Before the noon of day.
Joy, by its violent excess,
To certain ruin tends,
And all our rapturous happiness
In hasty sorrow ends.

In vain doth earthly bliss afford
A momentary shade;
It rises like the prophet’s gourd,
And withers o’er my head.
But of my Sav­ior’s love possessed,
No more for earth I pine;
Secure of ev­er­last­ing rest
Beneath the heav’nly vine.