O know ye not that ye

Representative Text

O! know ye not that ye
The temple are of God?
Revere the earth-built shrine, where He
Should find a meet abode!

Immortal man, keep pure
Thyself, that mystic shrine;
Let hate of all that's dark endure,
And love of all divine.

Let saintly thoughts be shown
In act by saintly things;
Like glories through the temple thrown,
From cherub’s curtained wings.

Let life, a holy stream,
Its fountain holy show;
Reflecting, with a softened gleam,
Heaven’s purity below.

Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #280

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Author: John Johns

Johns, John, born at Plymouth, March 17, 1801, the son of an artist. Educated at the grammar school and by the Rev. I. Worsley, Unitarian minister at Plymouth, and afterwards spent two years at Edinburgh. In 1820 became minister of the old Presbyterian chapel at Crediton, where he remained till his removal to Liverpool in 1836, as Minister to the Poor. He was a man of fine poetic temperament and retiring disposition, but his work among the people called out his great practical and organising ability. He died a sacrifice to the fever which raged in the district where he laboured, June 23, 1847. Besides his reports to the Liverpool Domestic Mission Society, and frequent contributions to the Monthly Repository, Christian Reformer, and Christia… Go to person page >

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