Salvation’s Song

Thee will I praise! Thou all my strength and song!

No longer earthly songs shall foul my lips.

Let potsherds praise the potsherds of the earth,

My praise shall be of Thee.

The world shall hear Thy name,

Thy peerless name, confessed with joyful lips,

Saviour divine! Son of the living God!

Lord of the vast and searchless universe!

Great Son of God, before Thy feet my soul

Bows in the dust, and all her secret springs

Well forth in worship. As I meditate

Upon Thy majesty, omnipotence,

Glory immortal, power, supremacy,

Riches beyond all thought, ere ever Thou

Didst take upon Thyself a servant’s form;

And as I follow Thee from form of God

To form of man, and contemplate the wealth

Of moral excellencies that adorn

Thy sacred person, which are loathed by man

Ravished the heart of God; and when I see

Thee give Thyself, in love unspeakable,

To die my death, to suffer in my stead

The judgment of a sin-detesting God:

When by the Holy Spirit this is brought

Before my mental vision language fails,

And speechless in this holiest of all

I bow and worship.

O all-powerful love!

Love that the many waters could not quench,

Nor floods of wrath immeasurable drown,

Evinced amid Golgotha’s horrors, brought

To light amid the darkness and the doom

Of cross, and curse, and loneliness, and loss,

And gloom, and gall, and God-abandonment,

And rage, and ribald jest, and jeer, and gibe,

And man’s insanity, and hell let loose;

Of such great love my song shall ever be.

Love vast, immortal, infinite, divine,

Love that surpasses knowledge, yet well-known,

And in the Spirit’s power the joy, the boast,

The life, the light, and comfort of my heart!

The love of God, of Christ, the Father’s love!

My portion now! My portion when I meet

My Saviour on the cloud, when He shall come

To bring me to love’s everlasting home.

O for a tongue to tell it, for a voice

Powerful enough to carry it with all

Its precious, life-imparting sweetness to

The utmost limits of the utmost world!