[Music]
How condescending and how kind
Was God's eternal Son!
Our mis'ry reach'd his heav'nly mind
And pity brought him down.
When justice by our sins provoked,
Drew forth its dreadful sword,
He gave his soul up to the stroke,
Without a murmuring word.
Here we behold his bowels roll,
As kind as when he died;
And see the sorrows of his soul
Bleed through his wounded side.
This was compassion like a God,
That when the Savior knew
The price of pardon was his blood,
His pity ne'er withdrew.
Now though he reigns exalted high,
His love is still as great;
Well he remembers Calvary,
Nor let his saints forget.
Here let our hearts begin to melt,
While we his death record,
And with our joy for pardoned guilt,
Mourn that we pierced the Lord.
The words are attributed to Isaac Watts. I have supplied the second
and third stanzas from _The Olive Leaf_, p. 129. The tune is from the
eighteenth century; found also OSH 286, PB 38, HH 63, UHH 13. The
tune's frame is found with the text of 'Good Morning, My Pretty Little
Miss', Sharp, ii., 90, also in 'Ibby Damsel', Sharp, ii., 137. I
surmise that we have, in the last line of the second stanza above, the
source of the negro spiritual refrain:
An' he never said a mumblin' word.
No. 31
GOOD PHYSICIAN, SOH 49