1. Father divine, I come to Thee,
I yield, a captive, to Thy sway,
That love’s gold chain may set me free
For all the burden of the day.
2. I come not to avoid my care,
I come not to desert the strife;
I come to seek new strength to bear,
I fly to find new power for life.
3. Many there be that seek Thy face
To meet the hour of parting breath,
But ’tis for earth I need Thy grace—
Life is more solemn still than death.
4. When morning gilds the porch of day,
I feel so vile amid the glow
That I should faint, didst Thou not say,
I make thee whiter than the snow!
5. When noontide brings its work to all,
I find my task so hard to be,
That I should sink, didst Thou not call,
My strength is perfected in thee!
6. When darkness leads the world to rest,
The silent burden of the night
Would crush, but for Thy message blest,
At evening time there shall be light!
7. Oh, may these streams of golden light
To all my desert way be given,
Till faith itself is lost in sight,
And days on earth be days of Heaven.
Matheson, George, D.D., was born at Glasgow, March 27, 1842, and although deprived of his eyesight in youth he passed a brilliant course at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. in 1862. In 1868 he became the parish minister at Innellan; and subsequently of St. Bernard's, Edinburgh. He was the Baird Lecturer in 1881, and St. Giles Lecturer in 1882. He has published several important prose works. His poetical pieces were collected and published in 1890 as Sacred Songs, Edinburgh: W. Blackwood. In addition to his hymn "O Love that wilt not let me go" (q. v.), four others from his Sacred Songs are in Dr. A. C. Murphey's Book of Common Song, Belfast, 1890.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)… Go to person page >
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