Watch and Pray

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Go watch and pray, thou canst not tell

Author: Thomas Hastings
Published in 61 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Go, watch and pray: thou canst not tell
How near thine hour may be;
Thou canst not know how soon the bell
May toll its notes for thee:
Death's countless snares beset thy way;
Frail child of dust! go, watch and pray.

2 Fond youth, while free from blighting care,
Does thy firm pulse beat high?
Do hope's glad visions, bright and fair,
Dilate before thine eye?
Soon these must change--must pass away;
Frail child of dust! go, watch and pray.

2 Thou aged man! life's wintry storm
Hath seared thy vernal bloom;
With trembling limbs and wasting form,
Thou 'rt bending o'er the tomb;
And can vain hope lead thee astray?
Go, weary pilgrim! watch and pray.

4 Ambition, stop thy panting breath!
Pride, sink thy lifted eye!
Behold the caverns, dark with death,
Before you open lie;
The heavenly warning now obey;
Ye sons of pride, go, watch and pray.

Source: The Voice of Praise: a collection of hymns for the use of the Methodist Church #694

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Author: Thomas Hastings

Hastings, Thomas, MUS. DOC., son of Dr. Seth Hastings, was born at Washington, Lichfield County, Connecticut, October 15, 1784. In 1786, his father moved to Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y. There, amid rough frontier life, his opportunities for education were small; but at an early age he developed a taste for music, and began teaching it in 1806. Seeking a wider field, he went, in 1817, to Troy, then to Albany, and in 1823 to Utica, where he conducted a religious journal, in which he advocated his special views on church music. In 1832 he was called to New York to assume the charge of several Church Choirs, and there his last forty years were spent in great and increasing usefulness and repute. He died at New York, May 15, 1872. His aim was the… Go to person page >

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