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Ajar the temple gates are swinging

Representative Text

1 Ajar the temple gates are swinging,
Lo! still the grace of God is free.
Perhaps when next the bells are ringing
The grave shall open unto thee,
And thou art laid beneath the sod
No more to see this house of God.

2 But if to-day the Lord thou seekest,
His blessed gospel to embrace,
He who gives strength unto the weakest
Shall fill thy heart with truth and grace.
In life He will thy footsteps guide,
In death He still is at thy side.

3 O come to-day, and do not reckon
Upon the day that is not thine.
The Lord in mercy still doth beckon:
Accept to-day His grace divine.
Then shall thy prayers and praises rise
A sacred incense to the skies.

Amen.

Source: The Hymnal and Order of Service #402

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Author: Frans Mikael Franzen

Franzén, Franz Michael, was born at Uleabôrg, Finland, in 1772, and educated at the University of Abo, where he became Librarian and Professor of Literary History. He was subsequently Minister at Kumla, Orebro, Sweden, and then of Santa Clara, in Stockholm. He was consecrated Bishop of Hernosand, in 1841, and died there in 1847. (See Supplement to Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe.) Of his pieces one is in English common use. It begins "Jesum haf i ständigt minne," translated by Mrs. Charles in her Christian Life in Song, 1858, p. 250, as "Jesus in Thy memory keep" (Looking unto Jesus). Usually it begins with stanza ii., "Look to Jesus, till, reviving." --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)  Go to person page >

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Text Information

First Line: Ajar the temple gates are swinging
Author: Frans Mikael Franzen
Copyright: Public Domain
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Tune

DIR DIR JEHOVAH

DIR, DIR, JEHOVA was published anonymously in Georg Wittwe's Musikalisches Handbuch der Geistlichen Melodien (1690). The bar form (AAB) melody was expanded in Johann A. Freylinghausen's Geistreiches Gesangbuch (1704), where it was set to a hymn by Bärtholomaus Crasselius, "Dir, dir, Jehovah, vill i…

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Instances

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The Hymnal and Order of Service #402

The Hymnal and Order of Service #402
Text

The Hymnal and Order of Service #402

The Hymnal and Order of Service #402
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