O for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace!
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honours of Thy name.
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.
He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
He speaks, and, listening to his voice,
New life the dead receive,
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice,
The humble poor believe.
Hear Him, ye deaf, His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
Look unto Him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.
See all your sins on Jesus laid:
The Lamb of God was slain,
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.
In Christ your Head, ye then shall know,
Shall feel your sins forgiven;
Anticipate your heaven below,
And own that love is heaven.
Charles Wesley
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Olive Morgan 04.22.07 at 3:10 pm
4.00am? I’m intrigued, Richard! Did you have a late night or an early rising?- or perhaps an all-night Pray Without Ceasing? This is a hymn I could sing at all hours of the day or night.
Richard 04.22.07 at 8:55 pm
Neither - I had the post set to publish automatically. 4am seemed like as good a time as any!
Sarah 04.22.07 at 9:19 pm
Hmm, we had this one this evening
Tis a good ‘un. Hope you had a good weekend, I assume from your commenting that you got back ok? I hear there was a good number of you. Service at Sketty went well, I think..
ee 04.23.07 at 11:04 pm
9 verses! Wow! Did you do all of those? I’ve never seen that last one before.
Please tell me you sang it in F not G, no-one would have had a voice left. It gets far too high in G.
Richard 04.24.07 at 7:50 am
There are ‘only’ 8 verses in our current hymn book - they may or may not have used them all. (The verse that begins ‘Look unto Him, ye nations, own’ is missing, which is a shame in my view). However, originally what we now sing as verse 1 was the seventh verse of an eighteen stanza poem.
If they used the first set tune (Lydia), then they’ll have sung it in D.
Sarah 04.26.07 at 1:11 am
We did indeed use Lydia, and Richard is right, there are only 8 verses in our hymn book. Pathetic! I’m sure we could manage an extra one
dh 04.26.07 at 4:58 pm
Richard, this is one of my favorite hymns.
Thanks so much for posting it. It really did encourage me this Thursday morning all the way across the Atlantic to middle America. I really do appreciate this post. 
This particular verse is one that is my favorite:
“Look unto Him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.”
particularly the “…through Faith alone” part.
David C 04.26.07 at 6:19 pm
When the Chairman of the District Preached a few weeks ago and suggested we sung the first and last 2 verses to Lydia the phrase Miserable Devil crossed my mind.
On Sunday when singing all 8 verses to Lyngham I was ready to cry for mercy after verse 6 :o)
The service was lead by a marvellous Gospel Choir set up as a Community Initiative by Canon Slade a local Faith School. Who really did remind us that is no greater feeling than Praising God with Joyfullness in Song.
They deserved much admiration for Singing a couple items of their own before we joined them in And can it be.
If it gets any better than that I want to be there !!!