He came not with His heav’n­ly crown,
His scep­ter clad with pow­er;
His com­ing was in fee­bleness,
The in­fant of an hour.
A hum­ble man­ger cra­dled first
The vir­gin’s ho­ly birth,
And low­ing herds com­pan­ioned there
The Lord of Heav’n and earth.

He came not in His robe of wrath,
With arm out­stretched to slay;
But, on the dark­ling paths of earth,
To pour ce­les­ti­al day,
To guide in peace the wan­der­ing feet,
The brok­en heart to bind;
And bear up­on the pain­ful cross
The sins of hu­man kind.

And Thou hast borne them, Sav­ior meek!
And there­fore un­to Thee
In hum­ble­ness and gra­ti­tude,
Our hearts shall of­fered be;
And greenly, as the fes­tal bough
That on Thy al­tar lies,
Our souls, our bo­dies, all be Thine,
A living sac­ri­fice!

Yet once again Thy sign shall be
Upon the heav’ns dis­played,
And earth and its in­ha­bi­tants,
Be ter­ri­bly afraid;
For not in weak­ness clad Thou com’st
Our woes, our sins, to bear,
But girt with all Thy Fa­ther’s might,
His ven­geance to de­clare.

The ter­rors of that aw­ful day,
Oh! who shall un­der­stand?
Or who abide, when Thou in wrath
Shall lift Thy ho­ly hand?
The earth shall quake, the sea shall roar,
The sun in heav’n grow pale,
But Thou hast sworn, and wilt not change,
Thy faith­ful shall not fail!

Then grant us, Sav­ior! so to pass
Our time in trem­bling here,
That when, up­on the clouds of heav’n,
Thy glory shall ap­pear,
Uplifting high our joy­ful heads,
In tri­umph we may rise,
And en­ter, with Thy an­gel train,
Thy tem­ple in the skies!