When long the soul had slept in chains

Representative Text

When long the soul had slept in chains
And man to man was stern and cold;
When love and worship were but strains
That swept the gifted chords of old—
By shady mount and peaceful lake,
A meek and lowly stranger came,
The weary drank the words he spake,
The poor and suffering blessed his name.

He went where frenzy held its rule,
Where sickness breathed its spell of pain;
By famed Bethesda’s mystic pool,
And by the darkened gate of Nain.
He soothed the mourner’s troubled breast,
He raised the contrite sinner’s head,
And on the loved ones’ lowly rest
The light of better life he shed.

Father, the spirit Jesus knew
We humbly ask of Thee to-night,
That we may be disciples too
Of him whose way was love and light.
Bright be the places where we tread
Amid earth’s suffering and its poor,
Until that day when tears are shed,
And broken sighs are heard, no more.

Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #574

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Author: E. H. Chapin

Chapin, Edwin Hubbell, D.D., was the most distinguished man of the Universalists in later years. In his early days he was eminent as a lecturer; and as a preacher until his death. He was born in Union village, Washington, N. Y., Dec. 29, 1814, and educated at Bennington, Vermont. He was successively pastor at Richmond, Virginia, 1837; Charleston, Mass.; Boston, 1846; and from 1848, of the Church of the Divine Paternity, New York city. He died Dec. 26, 1880. He published several works, and edited, with J. G. Adams, Hymns for Christian Devotion, Boston, 1846. This is perhaps the most prominent Universalist Collection in the States. To it Dr. Chapin contributed the following hymns:— 1. Amid surrounding gloom and waste. During a Storm. 2.… Go to person page >

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