Wesley Corpus

Stay, thou triumphant spirit, stay, And bless me ere20 thou soar'st away, Where pain can never come! In vain my call: the soul is fled, By Israel's flaming steeds convey'd To her eternal home. 19Grace Bowen was the nurse of Sarah Gwynne Wesley. A manuscript copy of a draft of this hymn (starting with the second half of stanza 10), in John Wesley's hand, survives at MARC (MA 1977/157, JW III.8); variant readings are noted in footnotes. 20Ori., "e're"; but clearly used in sense of "before." Page 24 Yet lo! I now the blessing find, The legacy she left behind, Fruit of her latest prayer: The answer in my heart I feel, This fresh supply of heavenly zeal, To live, and die like her. She liv'd to serve the God unknown, And following in a land not sown, A thorny wilderness, Beneath the yoke of legal fear She labour'd hard, with heart sincere, To buy the Saviour's peace. Faithful she then in little was; And zealous for religion's cause, To please the Lord most high In serving man she humbly sought, But blindly by her duties thought Herself to justify. Yet when she heard the gospel-sound, That grace doth more than sin abound, That pard'ning grace is free, She cast her righteous rags aside, She closed at once with Christ, and cry'd, "He bought the peace for me!" From hence the fight of faith begun, From hence in Jesus' steps she run, Nor e'er disgrac'd the cause, Meek follower of the patient Lamb, She priz'd his honourable shame, And gloried in his cross. By all the rage of fiends and men, (The vehement stream, the beating rain) Page 25 Assail'd on every side; Nor men nor fiends her firmness shock, The house was built upon a Rock, And every storm defy'd. What tongue her hidden worth can tell, Her active faith and fervent zeal, And works of righteousness, Her thirst and reverence for the word, Her love to those who lov'd her Lord, Or but desired his grace! She lov'd them both in word and deed, O'rjoy'd an hungry Christ to feed, To visit him in pain; Him in his members she reliev'd, And freely as she first receiv'd, Gave him her all again.