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5 O Lord, how good, how great art thou,
In heaven and earth the same;
There angels at thy footstool bow,
Here babes thy grace proclaim.

Henry Francis Lyte. 1834.

6

L.M.

"The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord."

1 YES, God is good; in earth and sky,
From ocean-depths and spreading wood,
Ten thousand voices seem to cry,

God made us all, and God is good.

2 The sun that keeps his trackless way,
And downward pours his golden flood,
Night's sparkling hosts,-all seem to say,
In accents clear, that God is good.

3 The merry birds prolong the strain,
Their song with every spring renewed;
And balmy air and falling rain,

Each softly whispers, God is good. 4 I hear it in the rushing breeze;

The hills that have for ages stood,
The echoing sky and roaring seas,
All swell the chorus, God is good.

5 Yes, God is good, all nature says,

By God's own hand with speech endued;
And man, in louder notes of praise,

Should sing for joy that God is good.

6 For all thy gifts we bless thee, Lord;
But chiefly for our heavenly food;
Thy pardoning grace, thy quickening word,
These prompt our song that God is good.

John Hampden Gurney. 1838.

7

"God is love."

77,77,77.

1 EARTH, with her ten thousand flowers,
Air, with all its beams and showers,
Ocean's infinite expanse,

Heaven's resplendent countenance,
All around, and all above,
Hath this record, God is love.

2 Sounds among the vales and hills,
In the woods and by the rills,
Of the breeze, and of the bird,
By the gentle summer stirred,
All these songs, beneath, above,
Have one burden, God is love.

3 All the hopes and fears that start
From the fountain of the heart,
All the quiet bliss that lies
In our human sympathies,
These are voices from above,
Sweetly whispering, God is love.

Thomas Rawson Taylor. 1828.

8

"God is wisdom, God is love."

1 GOD is love; his mercy brightens
All the path in which we rove;
Bliss he wakes, and woe he lightens:
God is wisdom, God is love.

2 Chance and change are busy ever;
Man decays and ages move;
But his mercy waneth never:
God is wisdom, God is love.

87,87.

3 E'en the hour that darkest seemeth
Will his changeless goodness prove;
From the mist his brightness streameth:
God is wisdom, God is love.

4 He with earthly cares entwineth
Hope and comfort from above;
Everywhere his glory shineth:
God is wisdom, God is love.

Sir John Bowring. 1825.

L.M.

9

"Thy great goodness."

1 O SOURCE divine and Life of all,
The Fount of being's fearful sea,
Thy depth would every heart appal,
That saw not love supreme in thee.

2 We shrink before thy vast abyss,
Where worlds on worlds eternal brood;
We know thee truly but in this,
That thou bestowest all our good.

3 And so, 'mid boundless time and space,
O grant us still in thee to dwell,
And through the ceaseless web to trace
Thy presence working all things well.

4 Nor let thou life's delightful play

Thy truth's transcendent vision hide;
Nor strength and gladness lead astray
From thee, our nature's only Guide.

5 Bestow on every joyous thrill

Thy deeper tone of reverent awe;
Make pure thy creature's erring will,
And teach his heart to love thy law.
John Sterling. 1840.

!

10

My ways higher than your ways."

1 THERE'S a wideness in God's mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There's a kindness in his justice,
Which is more than liberty.

2 There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven;
There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

3 There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Saviour;
There is healing in his blood.

4 For the love of God is broader

Than the measures of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

5 But we make his love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify his strictness
With a zeal he will not own.

6 There is plentiful redemption

In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

87,87.

Frederick William Faber. 1848.

11

"The wonders of redeeming love."

1 How wondrous are the works of God,
Displayed through all the world abroad,
Immensely great, immensely small:
Yet one strange work exceeds them all.

L.M.

2 He formed the sun, fair fount of light;
The moon and stars to rule the night:
But night and stars and moon and sun
Are little works compared with one.

3 He rolled the seas, and spread the skies,
Made valleys sink, and mountains rise;
The meadows clothed with native green,
And bade the rivers glide between:

4 But what are seas, or skies, or hills,
Or verdant vales, or gliding rills,
To wonders man was born to prove,
The wonders of redeeming love?

Joseph Hart. 1759.

12

"Ich habe nun den Grund gefunden."

1 O LOVE, thou bottomless abyss,
My sins are swallowed up in thee:
Covered is my unrighteousness,

Nor spot of guilt remains on me,

88,88,88.

While Jesus' blood, through earth and skies,
Mercy, free, boundless mercy, cries.

2 With faith I plunge me in this sea;
Here is my hope, my joy, my rest;
Hither, when hell assails, I flee;

I look into my Saviour's breast;
Away, sad doubt, and anxious fear;
Mercy is all that's written there.

3 Though waves and storms go o'er my head, Though strength and health and friends be

gone,

Though joys be withered all and dead,

Though every comfort be withdrawn,
On this my steadfast soul relies,-
Father, thy mercy never dies.

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