Pull for the Shore

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Light in the darkness sailor, day is at hand!

Author: P. P. Bliss
Tune: [Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand!]
Published in 27 hymnals

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Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand!
See o'er the foaming billows fair Haven's land,
Drear was the voyage, sailor, now almost o'er,
Safe within the life-boat, sailor, pull for the shore.

Chorus:
Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore!
Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar;
Safe in the life-boat, sailor, cling to self no more!
Leave the poor old stranded wreck, and pull for the shore.

2 Trust in the life-boat, sailor, all else will fail,
Stronger the surges dash, and fiercer the gale,
Heed not the stormy winds, though loudly they roar;
Watch the "bright morning star," and pull for the shore. [Chorus]

3 Bright gleams the morning, sailor, up lift the eye;
Clouds and darkness disappearing, glory is nigh!
Safe in the life-boat, sailor, sing evermore;
"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" pull for the shore. [Chorus]

Source: Minnetonka Songs: for Sabbath Schools, compiled especially for the Minnetonka Sabbath-School Assembly #126

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Author: P. P. Bliss

Philip P. Bliss (b. Clearfield County, PA, 1838; d. Ashtabula, OH, 1876) left home as a young boy to make a living by working on farms and in lumber camps, all while trying to continue his schooling. He was converted at a revival meeting at age twelve. Bliss became an itinerant music teacher, making house calls on horseback during the winter, and during the summer attending the Normal Academy of Music in Genesco, New York. His first song was published in 1864, and in 1868 Dwight L. Moody advised him to become a singing evangelist. For the last two years of his life Bliss traveled with Major D. W. Whittle and led the music at revival meetings in the Midwest and Southern United States. Bliss and Ira D. Sankey published a popular series of hym… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Light in the darkness sailor, day is at hand!
Title:	Pull for the Shore
Author:	P. P. Bliss
Language:	English
Refrain First Line:	Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore!
Notes:	On one occasion the vessel on which [Dwight Lyman] Moody was returning from Europe, accompanied by his oldest son, was disabled by the breaking of a propelling shaft. Mrs. Moody was at my home in Brooklyn, waiting to receive them on their arrival. Day after day passed without word from the steamer, and Mrs. Moody became almost frantic with anxiety. At last I received this cable dispatch from Mr. Moody: ‘Saved, thank God.’ I learned afterwards that the people gathered around him and begged him to pray for their deliverance. Several infidels on board, who had been making light of Mr. Moody’s work, were found kneeling at his side, and through the earnestness of his prayers and divine help they were led to Christ. Sankey, p. 222
Copyright:	Public Domain

English

10 shown out of 20

Welsh

Welsh and English Hymns and Anthems #110

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Notes

Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand. Safety. This hymn, “The Life-Boat," has attained to great popularity. The incident upon which it is based, that of the rescue of a ship's crew by a life-boat, is given in detail by Mr. Sankey in his Sacred Songs, &c, No. 99 (large ed.). It is sometimes known by its refrain, "Pull for the shore," &c.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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