Shall we not love thee, mother dear

Representative Text

1 Shall we not love thee, mother dear,
whom Jesus loves so well?
And, to his glory, year by year,
thy joy and honour tell?

2 Bound with the curse of sin and shame
we helpless sinners lay,
until in tender love he came
to bear the curse away.

3 And thee he chose from whom to take
true flesh his flesh to be;
in it to suffer for our sake,
by it to make us free.

4 Thy Babe he lay upon thy breast,
to thee he cried for food;
thy gentle nursing soothed to rest
th'Incarnate Son of God.

5 O wondrous depth of love divine,
that he should bend so low!
And, Mary, oh, what joy was thine
in his dear love to know;

6 joy to be mother of the Lord,
and thine the truer bliss,
in every thought, and deed, and word
to be for ever his.

7 And as he loves thee, mother dear,
we too will love thee well;
and, to his glory, year by year,
thy joy and honour tell.

8 Jesu, the virgin's holy Son,
we praise thee and adore,
who art with God the Father One
and Spirit evermore.

Source: CPWI Hymnal #747

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Author: H. W. Baker

Baker, Sir Henry Williams, Bart., eldest son of Admiral Sir Henry Loraine Baker, born in London, May 27, 1821, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated, B.A. 1844, M.A. 1847. Taking Holy Orders in 1844, he became, in 1851, Vicar of Monkland, Herefordshire. This benefice he held to his death, on Monday, Feb. 12, 1877. He succeeded to the Baronetcy in 1851. Sir Henry's name is intimately associated with hymnody. One of his earliest compositions was the very beautiful hymn, "Oh! what if we are Christ's," which he contributed to Murray's Hymnal for the Use of the English Church, 1852. His hymns, including metrical litanies and translations, number in the revised edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, 33 in all. These were cont… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Shall we not love thee, mother dear
Author:	H. W. Baker
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Shall we not love thee, Mother dear. Sir H. W. Baker. [Blessed Virgin Mary.] Written for and first appeared in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern, and again, after revision, in the revised edition, 1875.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Notes

Shall we not love thee, Mother dear. Sir H. W. Baker. [Blessed Virgin Mary.] Written for and first appeared in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern, and again, after revision, in the revised edition, 1875.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

ST. AGNES (Dykes)

John B. Dykes (PHH 147) composed ST. AGNES for [Jesus the Very Thought of Thee]. Dykes named the tune after a young Roman Christian woman who was martyred in A.D. 304 during the reign of Diocletian. St. Agnes was sentenced to death for refusing to marry a nobleman to whom she said, "I am already eng…

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BEATITUDO

Composed by John B. Dykes (PHH 147), BEATITUDO was published in the revised edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1875), where it was set to Isaac Watts' "How Bright Those Glorious Spirits Shine." Originally a word coined by Cicero, BEATITUDO means "the condition of blessedness." Like many of Dykes's…

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[Shall we not love thee, Mother dear?]

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