Behold, my soul, the narrow bound

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Behold, my soul, the narrow bound

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 23 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Behold, my soul, the narrow bound
Of the revolving year:
How swift the weeks complete their round,
How short the months appear.

2 So fast eternity comes on,
And that important day,
When all that mortal life has done
God's judgment shall survey.

3 Yet, like an idle tale, we spend
The swift-advancing year;
And study artful ways to mend
The speed of its career.

4 Waken, O God! my trifling heart,
Its great concern to see;
That I may act the Christian part,
And give the year to thee.

5 So shall their course more grateful roll,
If future years arise;
Or this shall bear my happy soul
To joy that never dies.

Source: The Voice of Praise: a collection of hymns for the use of the Methodist Church #908

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Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

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