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The future belongs to the children

The future belongs to the children

Author: Walter Hawkins
Tune: GOLDEN AGE
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

1 The future belongs to the children,
Though much to the past we owe,
Though much may be done in the present;
We stay when the old people go.
The vision God gave to our fathers
Is coming to us in our turn;
And at the first gleam of its splendor
Our hearts are beginning to burn.

Refrain:
It is stage by stage to the golden age,
To the golden age,
It is stage by stage to the golden age,
Far off we seem to view it;
But the good we crave wilt come to the brave
Who see God's will and do it.

2 Around us are wrongs and misdoings,
And struggle, and suff'ring, and woe;
The helpless are needing a champion,
The tempted are pressed by the foe;
And children are foully neglected,
They even are thrust into sin;
And the knights of the good Lord Jesus
Have many a battle to win. [Refrain]

3 The promise belongs to the children,
Saith One who is faithful and true
A promise of welfare and blessing,
Which God to the young doth renew:
Its glimmer is cleaving the darkness;
We know that the day is begun;
And cloudland is tinged with the glory
That tells of the might of the sun. [Refrain]

Source: Methodist Hymn and Tune Book: official hymn book of the Methodist Church #612

Author: Walter Hawkins

Hawkins, Walter. (Georgetown, Maryland, 1809?--August 6, 1894, Toronto, Ontario). American/British Methodist Episcopal. Born a slave, he reckoned that he was converted in 1822, but had little chance to develop his faith until he escaped to Philadelphia about 1840. Moving to Buffalo, New York, he organized an AME congregation before settling (after a brief stay in New Bedford, Massachusetts) on a farm near Saratoga. The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) brought about his move to Toronto, whose few black Methodists were then worshipping with their white neighbors; both accepted his services as a lay preacher. In 1856, however, Ontario's blacks formed a British ME church, which accepted him as a full-time pastor for communities which many ex-slaves we… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: The future belongs to the children
Author: Walter Hawkins
Refrain First Line: It is stage by stage

Instances

Instances (1 - 1 of 1)
TextPage Scan

Methodist Hymn and Tune Book #612

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