Nearer to Me

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Ho reapers of Life's harvest, Why stand with rusted blade

Author: I. B. Woodbury
Tune: [Ho! reapers of life's harvest] (Woodbury)
Published in 120 hymnals

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Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	I Know Whom I Have Believed (Great Gospe…

Representative Text

1 Ho! reaper of life's harvest,
Why stand with rusty blade,
Until the night draws round thee,
And day begins to fade?
Why stand ye idle, waiting,
For reapers more to come?
The golden morn is passing,
Why sit ye idle, dumb?

2 Thrust in your sharpened sickle,
And gather in the grain,
The night is fast approaching,
And soon will come again.
The Master calls for reapers,
And shall He call in vain?
Shall sheaves lie there ungathered,
And waste upon the plain?

3 Come down from hill and mountain
In morning's ruddy glow,
Nor wait until the dial
Points to the noon below;
And come with stronger sinew,
Nor faint in heat or cold,
And pause not till the evening
Draws round its wealth of gold.

3 Mount up the heights of Wisdom,
And crush each error low;
Keep back no words of knowledge
That human hearts should know.
Be faithful to thy mission,
In service of thy Lord,
And then a golden chaplet,
Shall be Thy just reward.

Source: Christian Hymns: for every purpose in worship #54

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Author: I. B. Woodbury

Woodbury, Isaac Baker. (Beverly, Massachusetts, October 23, 1819--October 26, 1858, Columbia, South Carolina). Music editor. As a boy, he studied music in nearby Boston, then spent his nineteenth year in further study in London and Paris. He taught for six years in Boston, traveling throughout New England with the Bay State Glee Club. He later lived at Bellow Falls, Vermont, where he organized the New Hampshire and Vermont Musical Association. In 1849 he settled in New York City where he directed the music at the Rutgers Street Church until ill-health caused him to resign in 1851. He became editor of the New York Musical Review and made another trip to Europe in 1852 to collect material for the magazine. in the fall of 1858 his health br… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Ho reapers of Life's harvest, Why stand with rusted blade
Title:	Nearer to Me
Author:	I. B. Woodbury
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Tune

[Ho! reapers of life's harvest] (Woodbury)

WEBB

George J. Webb (b. Rushmore Lodge, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, 1803; d. Orange, NJ, 1887) composed WEBB (also known as MORNING LIGHT) on a voyage from England to the United States. The tune was published in The Odeon, a collection of secular music compiled by Webb and Lowell Mason (PHH 96) i…

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