Great Source of life! our souls confess

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Great Source of life! our souls confess

Author: Philip Doddridge
Tune: FEDERAL STREET
Published in 58 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 Great source of life, our souls confess
The various riches of thy grace;
Crown'd with thy mercy, we rejoice,
And in thy praise exalt our voice.

2 By thee the vault of heav'n was spread;
By thee the earth's foundations laid;
And all the scenes of man's abode
Proclaim a wise and gracious God.

3 Thy quick'ning hand resorts our breath,
When trembling on the verge of death;
Gently it wipes away our tears,
And lengthens life to future years.

4 Our lives are sacred to the Lord,
Kindled by him, by him restor'd;
And, while our hours renew their race,
May sin no more these hours disgrace!

5 So when, at length, by thee we're led
Through unknown regions of the dead,
With hope triumphant may we move
To scenes of nobler life above.

Source: A Collection of Hymns and A Liturgy: for the use of Evangelical Lutheran Churches; to which are added prayers for families and individuals #23

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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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First Line:	Great Source of life! our souls confess
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Psalm 116
(hymns)

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Notes

Great Source of life, our souls confess. P. Doddridge. [Thanksgiving for Personal Benefits.] This hymn is No. 10 in the "D. MSS." but is undated. It is in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled, "Of walking before the Lord in the land of the living," Psalm cxvi. 9. The same text was given in his (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 59, but the title was changed to, "Deliverance celebrated and good resolutions formed"; and again in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the Hymns, &c, 1839, No. 72. In some modern collections stanza ii. is omitted, as in Mercer's Church Psalter & Hymn Book, edition 1864, No. 507. Usually, however, it is given in full.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

FEDERAL STREET

Henry Kemble Oliver (b. Beverly, MA, 1800; d. Salem, MA, 1885) composed FEDERAL STREET in 1832, possibly as an imitation of earlier psalm tunes in long meter. He took it to a music class taught by Lowell Mason (who may have contributed to the harmony); Mason (PHH 96) published it in his Boston Acade…

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