1 By Thy birth, and by Thy tears,
By Thy human griefs and fears,
By Thy conflict in the hour
Of the subtle tempter's power:
Saviour, look with pitying eye;
Saviour, help me, or I die.
2 By Thy lonely hour of prayer,
By Thy fearful conflict there,
By Thy cross and dying cries,
By Thy one great sacrifice:
Saviour, look with pitying eye;
Saviour, help me, or I die.
3 By Thy triumph o'er the grave,
By Thy power the lost to save,
By Thy high, majestic throne,
By the empire all Thine own,
Saviour, look with pitying eye;
Saviour, help me, or I die.
AMEN.
Source: The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal: official hymnal of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church #425
Robert Grant (b. Bengal, India, 1779; d. Dalpoorie, India, 1838) was influenced in writing this text by William Kethe’s paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns (The original stanza 3 was omitted in Lift Up Your Hearts).
Of Scottish ancestry, Grant was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where… Go to person page >
James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >| First Line: | By Thy birth, and by Thy tears |
| Title: | Help, or I Perish |
| Author: | Robert Grant |
| Alterer: | James Montgomery |
| Meter: | 7.7.7.7.7.7 |
| Language: | English |
| Copyright: | Public Domain |
From the hymn "Saviour when in dust to thee," by Robert Grant, altered by James Montgomery for Thomas Cotterill's Selection of Psalms and Hymns, 8th Ed. (1819).
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