My soul! the awful hour will come

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My soul! the awful hour will come

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 31 hymnals

Representative Text

1 My soul, the awful hour will come,
Apace it passeth on,
To bear this body to the tomb,
And thee to scenes unknown.

2 My heart, long lab'ring with its woes,
Shall pant and sink away;
And you, my eye-lids, soon shall close,
On the last glimm'ring ray.

3 Whence in that hour shall I receive
A cordial for my pain,
When, if earth's monarchs were my friends,
Those friends would weep in vain?

4 Great King of nature and of grace!
To thee my spirit flies,
And opens all its deep distress
Before thy pitying eyes.

5 All its desires to thee are known,
And ev'ry secret fear;
The meaning of each broken groan
Well notic'd by thine ear.

6 O fix me by that mighty pow'r,
Which to such love belongs,
Where darkness veils the eyes no more,
And groans are chang'd to songs.

Source: A Collection of Hymns and Prayers, for Public and Private Worship #432

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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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