Scripture Verse

Come unto Me. Matthew 11:28

Introduction

Words: El­len K. Brad­ford, 1878.

Music: Ed­ward H. Phelps (🔊 pdf nwc).

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

portrait
Ellen K. Bradford (1839–1899)

We were hold­ing meet­ings in Spring­field, Mas­sa­chu­setts, in 1878. One day, at the noon meet­ing in City Hall, a mi­ni­ster rose on the plat­form and bore tes­ti­mo­ny to the way the Lord had blessed one of his sons, a Yale stu­dent.

My son, he said, “hap­pened to be seat­ed be­side a gen­tle­man from Eng­land in one of Mr. Moo­dy’s meet­ings. Tar­ry­ing for the af­ter-meet­ing, he was spok­en to by the gen­tle­man be­side him about be­com­ing a Chris­tian.

After half an hour spent in talk­ing they went out in­to the street, and the gen­tle­man said that he would glad­ly walk home with my son if he had no ob­je­ction, as he had no­thing else to do. Be­fore part­ing, the ear­nest Chris­tian work­er said he would like to of­fer one more pray­er for my boy.

Holding the young man’s hand, he asked that the Lord would ena­ble him to de­cide the great ques­tion that ve­ry night. With this pray­er they se­pa­rat­ed. The gen­tle­man left town the next day, and may ne­ver know how God heard and an­swered his pray­er.

“My son was grea­tly im­pressed. Ap­proach­ing the house, he stopped sud­den­ly, made a deep line across the gra­veled walk with his cane, and said, ‘Now, I must de­cide this ques­tion, for or against Christ, to­night. If I cross the line my life shall be for him; but if I go around it, it will be for the world.’

Standing there con­sid­er­ing the great ques­tion with him­self for a half hour, at last he cried, ‘O God, help me to de­cide aright! Then he went bound­ing ov­er the line, and came in­to my room and said, ‘Fa­ther, I wish you would pray for me! I have de­cid­ed to be a Chris­tian.’” The min­is­ter said that his heart went out in sup­pl­ic­ation to God to keep and bless his boy.

This story af­fect­ed the au­di­ence to tears. One of the news­pa­per­men, Mr. E. H. Phelps, pro­pri­etor of one of the lead­ing pa­pers of the ci­ty, took down the fa­ther’s story and pub­lished it the next morn­ing. And Mrs. Brad­ford, of Pal­mer, in the same state, af­ter read­ing the in­ci­dent in the pa­per, sat down and wrote Over the Line.

She sent the hymn to the ed­it­or of the pa­per, Mr. Phelps, and he at once set it to mu­sic. Three days lat­er he hand­ed the song to me. I adapt­ed it and had it pub­lished in “Gos­pel Hymns.” It has been blessed to thou­sands of souls all ov­er the world, lead­ing to the con­ver­sion of ma­ny.

Sankey, pp. 216–17

Lyrics

Oh, ten­der and sweet was the Mas­ter’s voice
As He lov­ing­ly called to me,
Come ov­er the line, it is on­ly a step—
I am wait­ing, My child, for thee.

Refrain

Over the line, hear the sweet re­frain,
Angels are chant­ing the hea­ven­ly strain:
Over the line, why should I re­main
With a step be­tween me and Je­sus?

But my sins are ma­ny, my faith is small;
Lo! the an­swer came quick and clear;
Thou need­est not trust in thy­self at all,
Step ov­er the line, I am here.

Refrain

But my flesh is weak, I tear­ful­ly said,
And the way I can­not see;
I fear if I try I may sad­ly fail,
And thus may dis­hon­or Thee.

Refrain

Ah, the world is cold, and I can­not go back,
Press for­ward I sure­ly must;
I will place my hand in His wound­ed palm,
Step over the line, and trust.

Over the line, hear the sweet re­frain,
Angels are chant­ing the hea­ven­ly strain:
Over the line, I will not re­main;
I’ll cross it and go to Je­sus.