1 To all the saints of God on earth;
Their death day is their day of birth
Death is their door of life, the Sacred Way
By which they pass to realms of endless day.
2 And whence do all the saints derive
The life by which through death they live?
From God made flesh; on Him their virtues grow.
He is the fount from which their graces flow.
3 We sang to God on yestermorn,
When Jesus Christ for us was born;
And from His birth the saints their birthdays date;
And in the saints their Lord we celebrate.
4 Today the first of martyrs dies,
And dying enters paradise;
Foes rage against him; but what gleams of grace
Angelic shine on his transfigured face!
5 While storms of stones around him fly,
His soul is anchored in the sky;
I see Heav’n opened, and at God’s right hand
The Son of Man, he cries, in glory stand.
6 Jesu, receive my soul, he says.
Kneels down, and then more loudly prays,
Lord, do not this their sin in memory keep—
And when he thus had said, he fell asleep.
7 Lord, when we suffer here for Thee,
Grant us Thy glorious face to see,
And on the spirit’s wings of faith and love
Waft us from earth to light and life above.
8 Praises to God the Father give,
And to the Son in whom we live;
And praise to God the Holy Spirit be,
One everlasting God, and Persons Three.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal #15721
Christopher Wordsworth--nephew of the great lake-poet, William Wordsworth--was born in 1807. He was educated at Winchester, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A., with high honours, in 1830; M.A. in 1833; D.D. in 1839. He was elected Fellow of his College in 1830, and public orator of the University in 1836; received Priest's Orders in 1835; head master of Harrow School in 1836; Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1844; Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge in 1847-48; Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berks, in 1850; Archdeacon of Westminster, in 1865; Bishop of Lincoln, in 1868. His writings are numerous, and some of them very valuable. Most of his works are in prose. His "Holy Year; or, Hymns for Sundays, Holidays, and other occ… Go to person page >
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