My God, my Father, blissful name

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My God, my Father, blissful name

Author: Anne Steele
Published in 262 hymnals

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Audio files: MIDI

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Representative Text

1. My God, my Father, blissful name!
Oh, may I call you mine.
May I with sweet assurance claim
A portion so divine?
This only can my fears control,
And bid my sorrows fly.
What harm can ever reach my soul,
Beneath my Father’s eye?

2. Whate’er your providence denies,
I calmly would acquit,
For you are just, and good, and wise;
I to your will submit.
Whate’er your sacred will ordains,
Oh, give me strength to bear;
And let me know my Father reigns,
And trust his tender care.

3. If pain and sickness rend this frame,
And life almost depart,
Is not thy mercy still the same,
To cheer my drooping heart?
If cares and sorrows me surround,
Their pow'r why should I fear?
My inward peace they cannot wound,
If you, my God, are near.

4. Your sov'reign ways are all unknown
To my weak, erring sight;
Yet let my soul, adoring own
That all thy ways are right.
My God, my Father, be your name
My solace and my stay;
Oh, will you seal my humble claim,
And drive my fears away.

Source: Hymns and Devotions for Daily Worship #186

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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First Line:	My God, my Father, blissful name
Author:	Anne Steele
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

My God, my Father, blissful Name. Anne Steele. [Humility and Trust.] Appeared in her Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, 1760, vol. i. p. 114, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "Humble Reliance." It was repeated in the 2nd edition of the Poems, 1780, and in Sedgwick's reprint of her Hymns, 1863, p. 70. In its full original form it is not usually found in common use; but the following centos therefrom are given in several hymnbooks in Great Britain and America:—
1. My God, my Father, blissful Name. Composed of stanzas i.-iv., vi.-viii. in the Baptist New Selection, 1828; the Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858; the New Congregational Hymn Book, 1859, &c.
2. My God, my Father, charming Name. This is usually No. 1, with the alteration of the opening line.
3. Lord, what Thy providence denies. Composed of stanzas iii., iv., vii., viii. in the 1863 Appendix to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Psalms & Hymns, and others.
4. My God, whate'er Thy will ordains. In Kennedy, 1863, No. 1211, is a cento from this hymn and Miss Steele's "Dear Refuge of my weary soul."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

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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