If I Must Die

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If I must die, O, let me die, With hope in Jesus' blood

Author: Benjamin Beddome
Published in 49 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
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Representative Text

1 If I must die, O, let me die
With hope in Jesus' blood—
The blood that saves from sin and guilt,
And reconciles to God.

2 If I must die, O, let me die
In peace with all mankind,
And change these fleeting joys below
For pleasures more refined.

3 If I must die—and die I must—
Let some kind seraph come
And bear me on his friendly wing
To my celestial home.

4 Of Canaan's land, from Pisgah's top,
May I but have a view,
Though Jordan should o'erflow its banks,
I'll boldly venture through.

Source: The Christian Hymnary. Bks. 1-4 #561

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Author: Benjamin Beddome

Benjamin Beddome was born at Henley-in Arden, Warwickshire, January 23, 1717. His father was a Baptist minister. He studied at various places, and began preaching in 1740. He was pastor of a Baptist society at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, until his death in 1795. In 1770, he received the degree of M.A. from the Baptist College in Providence, Rhode Island. He published several discourses and hymns. "His hymns, to the number of 830, were published in 1818, with a recommendation from Robert Hall." Montgomery speaks of him as a "writer worthy of honour both for the quantity and the quality of his hymns." --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A. 1872.… Go to person page >

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First Line:	If I must die, O, let me die, With hope in Jesus' blood
Title:	If I Must Die
Author:	Benjamin Beddome
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Amos 4:12
(hymns)

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Notes

If I must die, O let me die. B. Beddome. [Death Anticipated.] This hymn was published in Dr. Rippon's Baptist Register, 1794, p. 319, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, in an obituary notice of Beddome. It there began:—

"If I must die, O let me die
Trusting in Thee alone."

In the Baptist Register, 1800, p. 312, it is given as:

"Lord, must I die? O let me die
Trusting in Thee alone."

This text was repeated in the 10th edition of Rippon's Selection, 1800, No. 550 (pt. iii.), and is found m a few modern collections, with sometimes two additional stanzas (ii. and v.). which were added in the 27th ed. of Rippon, 1827. In Beddome's (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1817, No. 778, it is given in 4 stanzas from Beddome's manuscript as:—

"'If I must die'—Oh let me die,
Trusting in Jesus' blood."

The American Sabbath Hymn Book, 1858, and others are from this text. [William T. Brooke]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

ST. AGNES (Dykes)

John B. Dykes (PHH 147) composed ST. AGNES for [Jesus the Very Thought of Thee]. Dykes named the tune after a young Roman Christian woman who was martyred in A.D. 304 during the reign of Diocletian. St. Agnes was sentenced to death for refusing to marry a nobleman to whom she said, "I am already eng…

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BYEFIELD

NAOMI (Nägeli)

NAOMI was a melody that Lowell Mason (PHH 96) brought to the United States from Europe and arranged as a hymn tune; the arrangement was first published in the periodical Occasional Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1836). Some scholars have attributed the original melody to Johann G. Nageli (PHH 315), but there…

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