Penitence and hope

Representative Text

1 Dear Saviour, when my thoughts recall
The wonders of thy grace,
Low at thy feet asham'd I fall,
And hide this wretched face.

2 Shall love like thine be thus repaid?
Ah vile, ungrateful heart!
By earth's low cares detain'd, betray'd,
From Jesus to depar —

3 From Jesus, who alone can give
True pleasure, peace and rest:
When absent from my Lord, I live
Unsatisfy'd, unblest.

4 But he, for his own mercy's sake,
My wandering soul restores:
He bids the mourning heart partake
The pardon it implores.

5 O while I breathe to thee, my Lord,
The penitential sigh,
Confirm the kind, forgiving word,
With pity in thine eye!

6 Then shall the mourner at thy feet
Rejoice to seek thy face,
And grateful own how kind, how sweet
Thy condescending grace!

Source: A Collection of Evangelical Hymns #CXXXVII

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Dear Savior, when my thoughts recall
Title:	Penitence and hope
Author:	Anne Steele
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Romans 2:4
(hymns)

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Notes

Dear Saviour, when my thoughts recall. Anne Steele. [Lent.] First published in Miscellaneous Pieces, which were added as vol. iii. to her Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, in 1780, pp. 79-80, and not in the Poemsin 1760, as stated in Spurgeon's Our Own Hymn Book, No. 616, where it is given in an unaltered form. It was reprinted in D. Sedgwick's reprint of Miss Steele's Hymns, 1863, p. 137, the original title reading “Penitence and Hope." Its use in America is extensive.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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