Scripture Verse

Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in Heaven. Lamentations 3:41

Introduction

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Garret C. Wellesley (1735–1781)
Earl of Mornington

Words: John Wes­ley, Col­lect­ion of Psalms and Hymns 1741.

Music: Morn­ing­ton ar­ranged from Gar­ret C. Well­es­ley, cir­ca 1760, in Da­vid’s Harp, by Ed­ward Mill­er, 1805 (🔊 pdf nwc).

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John Wesley (1703–1791)

This is one of the few orig­in­al hymns as­cribed to John Wes­ley. One rea­son why it is thought to be his ra­ther than Charles Wes­ley’s is that it is on­ly half-rhymed. Not a sin­gle known stan­za of Charles Wes­ley’s has that pe­cu­li­ar­ity.

The sub­lime thought ex­pressed in the third line of the first stan­za is bor­rowed from Pla­to: Lu­men est um­bra Dei.

Nutter, p. 29

Lyrics

We lift our hearts to Thee,
O Day Star from on high!
The sun it­self is but Thy shade,
Yet cheers both earth and sky.

O let Thine ori­ent beams
The night of sin dis­perse,
The mists of er­ror and of vice
Which shade the uni­verse.

How beau­te­ous na­ture now:
How dark and sad be­fore!
With joy we view the pleas­ing change,
And na­ture’s God adore.

O may no gloo­my crime
Pollute the ris­ing day;
Or Je­sus’ blood, like ev­en­ing dew,
Wash all the stains away.

May we this life im­prove,
To mourn for er­rors past;
And live this short, re­volv­ing day
As if it were our last.

To God—the Fa­ther, Son,
And Spir­it—One in Three,
Be glo­ry; as it was, is now,
And shall for­ev­er be.