Will You Give Your Boy?

A poor, fallen drunkard is dying today

Author: Elisha A. Hoffman
Tune: [A poor, fallen drunkard is dying today]
Published in 5 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 A poor, fallen drunkard is dying today,
And reaching the end of his race;
No more will he enter the gilded saloon;
There is wanted a boy for his place.

Shall it be your boy?
Will you give your boy,
In his sweet beauty and grace?
Will you offer you child, so innocent, mild,
To take the dead drunkard’s place?

2 A gambler is slain in a revel and brawl,
And rests in death’s folded embrace;
No more will he drink of the pleasures of sin;
There is wanted a boy for his place.

Shall it be your boy?
Will you give your boy,
In his sweet beauty and grace?
Will you offer you child, so innocent, mild,
To take the dead gambler’s place?

3 A scoffer goes down in his sin to the grace,
Rejecting God’s mercy and grace;
No more will he curse the dear word of the Lord;
There is wanted a boy for his place.

Shall it be your boy?
Will you give your boy,
In his sweet beauty and grace?
Will you offer you child, so innocent, mild,
To take the dead scoffer’s place?

4 The worldling is startled the summons to hear:
“Now endeth the day of thy grace;”
He passes away, but how many there are
Who are ready to stand in his place?

Shall it be your boy?
Will you give your boy,
In his sweet beauty and grace?
Will you offer you child, so innocent, mild,
To take the dead worldling’s place?

Source: Songs of Matchless Love: for evangelistic services, devotional meetings and Sunday schools #90

Author: Elisha A. Hoffman

Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) after graduating from Union Seminary in Pennsylvania was ordained in 1868. As a minister he was appointed to the circuit in Napoleon, Ohio in 1872. He worked with the Evangelical Association's publishing arm in Cleveland for eleven years. He served in many chapels and churches in Cleveland and in Grafton in the 1880s, among them Bethel Home for Sailors and Seamen, Chestnut Ridge Union Chapel, Grace Congregational Church and Rockport Congregational Church. In his lifetime he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs including"Leaning on the everlasting arms" (1894). The fifty song books he edited include Pentecostal Hymns No. 1 and The Evergreen, 1873. Mary Louise VanDyke… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: A poor, fallen drunkard is dying today
Title: Will You Give Your Boy?
Author: Elisha A. Hoffman
Language: English
Refrain First Line: Shall it be your boy?
Copyright: Public Domain

Timeline

Instances

Instances (1 - 5 of 5)

A Messenger for Jesus #d6

Gospel Voices No.3 #d3

Page Scan

Light and Life Songs #185

TextAudioPage Scan

Songs of Matchless Love #90

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Songs of the New Crusade #50

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