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1
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O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer’s praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace. |
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My gracious Master and my God, Assist me to proclaim, To spread through all the earth abroad, The honors of Thy name. |
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Jesus! the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; ’Tis music in the sinner’s ears, ’Tis life, and health, and peace. |
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His love my heart has captive made, His captive would I be, For He was bound, and scourged and died, My captive soul to free. |
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He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me. |
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6
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So now Thy blessed Name I love, Thy will would e’er be mine. Had I a thousand hearts to give, My Lord, they all were Thine! |
43
Piano Hymns
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Detroit, MI, United States
Charles Wesley was suffering a bout of pleurisy in May, 1738, while he and his brother were studying under the Moravian scholar Peter Böhler in London. At the time, Wesley was plagued by extreme doubts about his faith. Taken to bed with the sickness on May 21 Wesley was attended by a group of Christians who offered him testimony and basic care, and he was deeply affected by this. He read from his Bible and found himself deeply affected by the words, and at peace with God. Shortly his strength began to return. He wrote of this experience in his journal and counted it as a renewal of his faith; when his brother John had a similar experience on the 24th, the two men met and sang a hymn Wesley had written in praise of his renewal.
One year from the experience, Wesley was taken with the urge to write another hymn, this one in commemoration of his renewal of faith. This hymn took the form of an 18-stanza poem, beginning with the opening lines 'Glory to God, and praise, and love,/Be ever, ever given' and was published in 1740 and entitled 'For the anniversary day of one's conversion'. The seventh verse, which begins, 'O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing', and which now is invariably the first verse of a shorter hymn, recalls the words of Peter Böhler who said, 'Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Him with them all.' The hymn was placed first in John Wesley's A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists published in 1780. It appeared first in every (Wesleyan) Methodist hymnal from that time until the publication of Hymns and Psalms in 1983. - Wikipedia
This shorter version of the hymn starts with the original stanza 7, as almost all shorter versions do, and continues through to the original stanza 10. In this version stanzas 4 and 6 are not written by Wesley, but are inserted.
I also especially like the original stanzas 11-12:
11. He speaks; and, listening to His voice,
New life the dead receive,
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice,
The humble poor believe.
12. Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosen’d tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Saviour come;
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
Ago Palace Way, Lagos, Nigeria
I pray God according to verse 2, to spread abroad the Honors of HIS Name by my Singing ministry in Jesus name. Amen.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Very Beautiful