Scripture Verse

I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18

Introduction

portrait
Arthur Coxe (1818–1896)

Words: Ar­thur C. Coxe, 1839, alt. At the 1873 ge­ne­ral con­fer­ence of the Ev­an­gel­ic­al Al­li­ance in New York Ci­ty, Pre­si­dent Wool­sey of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty quot­ed the first stan­za of this hymn while speak­ing of the world’s skep­tic­al at­ti­tude to­ward pray­er. The ap­plause was thun­der­ous.

Music: Tal­lis’ Or­di­nal Tho­mas Tal­lis, cir­ca 1567 (🔊 pdf nwc).

Lyrics

O where are kings and em­pires now
Of old, that went and came?
But Lord, Thy Church is pray­ing yet,
Two thou­sand years the same.

We mark her good­ly bat­tle­ments
And her foun­da­tions strong;
We hear, with­in, the so­lemn voice
Of her un­end­ing song.

For not like king­doms of the world
Thy ho­ly Church, O God,
Though earth­quake shocks are threat­en­ing her,
And tem­pests are abroad.

Unshaken as eter­nal hills,
Immovable she stands,
A mount­ain that shall fill the earth,
A house not made by hands.

illustration
Egyptian Temple
Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, 1840