1 Shall I come just as I am,
Come with all my guilt and sin?
If I open wide my heart,
Will He enter in?
Refrain:
As you are, just as you are
Come to Jesus, come today;
He will kindly welcome you,
Take your sins away.
2 Shall I come vile as I am,
And bend low at Jesus' feet?
Shall I plead His pard'ning grace,
And His love entreat? [Refrain]
3 Shall I come with all my fear,
Lest my sins have been too great?
Shall I break thro' all my doubts,
To sweet mercy's gate? [Refrain]
4 Shall I come, tho' far away
From the loving Shepherd's fold?
Will He bless me if I firm
To His promise hold? [Refrain]
Source: The Christian Hymnary. Bks. 1-4 #517
Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) after graduating from Union Seminary in Pennsylvania was ordained in 1868. As a minister he was appointed to the circuit in Napoleon, Ohio in 1872. He worked with the Evangelical Association's publishing arm in Cleveland for eleven years. He served in many chapels and churches in Cleveland and in Grafton in the 1880s, among them Bethel Home for Sailors and Seamen, Chestnut Ridge Union Chapel, Grace Congregational Church and Rockport Congregational Church. In his lifetime he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs including"Leaning on the everlasting arms" (1894). The fifty song books he edited include Pentecostal Hymns No. 1 and The Evergreen, 1873.
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