Holy Offerings, Rich and Rare

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Holy offerings, rich and rare

Author: John S. B. Monsell (1867)
Tune: HOLY OFFERINGS (Redhead)
Published in 55 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Holy offerings, rich and rare,
Offerings of praise and prayer,
Purer life and purpose high,
Clasped hands, uplifted eye,
Lowly acts of adoration
To the God of our salvation;
On His altar laid, we leave them:
Christ, present them! God, receive them!

2 Homage of each humble heart,
Ere we from Thy house depart;
Worship fervent, deep and high,
Adoration, ecstasy;
All that childlike love can render
Of devotion true and tender;
On thine altar laid, we leave them:
Christ, present them! God, receive them!

3 To the Father, and the Son,
And the Spirit, Three in One,
Though our mortal weakness raise
Offerings of imperfect praise,
Yet with hearts bowed down most lowly,
Crying, Holy! Holy! Holy!
On thine altar laid, we leave them:
Christ, present them! God, receive them!

The Hymnal: revised and enlarged as adopted by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the year of our Lord 1892

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Author: John S. B. Monsell

John Samuel Bewley Monsell (b. St. Colomb's, Londonderry, Ireland, 1811; d. Guilford, Surrey, England, 1875) was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and served as a chaplain and rector of several churches in Ireland after his ordination in 1835. Transferred to England in 1853, he became rector of Egham in Surrey and was rector of St. Nicholas Church in Guilford from 1870 until his death (caused by a construction accident at his church). A prolific poet, Monsell published his verse in eleven volumes. His three hundred hymns, many celebrating the seasons of the church year, were issued in collections such as Hymns and Miscellaneous Poems (1837), Spiritual Songs (1857), Hymns of Love and Praise (1863), and The Parish Hymnal (1873). Bert P… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Holy offerings, rich and rare
Title:	Holy Offerings, Rich and Rare
Author:	John S. B. Monsell (1867)
Meter:	7.7.7.7.8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Holy offerings, rich and rare [Lord we bear]. J. S. B. Monsell. [Offertory.] Written for the Offertory at the opening of St. Mary Magdalene Church, Paddington, 1867, and first printed for use on that occasion. It was included in 1873 in the author's Parish Hymnal, No. 201, having previously appeared in the 1869 Appendix to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Psalms & Hymns. It is also in Church Hymns, 1871, Thring's Collection, 1882, and many others. It is in 10 stanzas of 8 lines, and is usually divided into parts, and in several instances it is also abbreviated "Holy offerings, Lord, we bear," in Borthwick's Select Hymns for Church and Home, 1871, is an altered form of this hymn.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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