The Cyber Hymnal ‎#2580

2580. How Helpless Guilty Nature Lies

1. How helpless guilty nature lies,
Unconscious of its load!
The heart, unchanged, can never rise
To happiness and God.

2. Can aught, beneath a power divine,
The stubborn will subdue?
’Tis Thine, almighty Spirit! Thine,
To form the heart anew.

3. ’Tis Thine, the passions to recall,
And upward bid them rise;
To make the scales of error fall
From reason’s darkened eyes;

4. To chase the shades of death away,
And bid the sinner live;
A beam of Heaven, a vital ray,
’Tis Thine alone to give.

5. O change these wretched hearts of ours,
And give them life divine;
Then shall our passions and our powers
Almighty Lord! be Thine.

Text Information

• First Line: How helpless guilty nature lies
• Title: How Helpless Guilty Nature Lies
• Author: Anne Steele (1760)
• Meter: CM
• Language: English
• Source: Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, 1760
• Copyright: Public Domain

Tune Information

• Name: BEMERTON (Greatorex)
• Composer: Henry Wellington Greatorex (1849)
• Meter: CM
• Incipit: 32176 51113 21432
• Key: B♭ Major
• Copyright: Public Domain