To us the voice of Wisdom cries

Representative Text

To us the voice of Wisdom cries,
Hearken, ye children, and be wise;
Better than gold the fruit I bear,
Rubies to me may not compare,

Happy the man who daily waits
To hear me, watching at my gates;
Wretched is he who scorns my voice,
Death and destruction are his choice.

To them that love me I am kind;
And those who seek me early find;
My Son, give me thine heart,--and learn
Wisdom from folly to discern.

28
The Lord possess'd me, ere of old,
His hand the firmament unroll'd;
Before He bade the mountains stand,
Or pour'd the ocean round the land.

Rejoicing then before his throne,
From everlasting I was known;
Rejoicing still, as in His sight,
With men on earth is my delight.

Mark, the beginning of my law,
--Fear ye the Lord with sacred awe;
Mark the fulfilment of the whole,
Love ye the Lord with all your soul.

We hear, we learn; may we obey;
Jesus, the life, the truth, the way,
Wisdom and righteousness, we see,
Grace and salvation all in Thee.

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

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First Line:	To us the voice of Wisdom cries
Author:	James Montgomery
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Proverbs 8
(hymns)

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Notes

To us the voice of wisdom cries. J. Montgomery. [Invitation of Wisdom.] Appeared in Cotterill's Selection, 1819, No. 147, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, and entitled "The voice of Wisdom." In 1825, on its republication in Montgomery's Christian Psalmist, No. 501, it was partly rewritten, and given in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, the title being also changed to "The Invitation of Wisdom." This latter text and title were repeated in his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 29. It is the text in common use.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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