1 What contradictions meet
In ministers' employ!
It is a bitter sweet--
A sorrow full of joy;
No other post affords a place
For equal honour or disgrace!
2 Who can describe the pain
Which faithful preachers feel,
Constrain'd to preach in vain,
To hearts as hard as steel?
Or who can tell the pleasures felt,
When stubborn hearts begin to melt?
3 The Saviour's dying love,
The soul's amazing worth,
Their utmost efforts move,
And draw their bowels forth:
They pray and strive--their rest departs,
Till Christ be form'd in sinners hearts.
4 If some small hope appear,
They still are not content;
But with a jealous fear,
They watch for the event:
Too oft they find their hopes deceiv'd;
Then how their inmost souls are griev'd!
5 But when their pain succeed,
And from the tender blade
The rip'ning ears proceed,
Their toils are overpaid:
No harvest-joy can equal theirs,
To find the fruit of all their cares.
6 On what has now been sown
Thy blessing, Lord bestow;
The power is thine alone,
To make it spring and grow;
Do thou the gracious harvest raise,
And thou, alone, shalt have the praise.
Source: Hymns, Selected and Original: for public and private worship (1st ed.) #558
John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumultuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >
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