1 How many sheep are straying,
Lost from the Saviour's fold!
Upon the lonely mountain,
They shiver with the cold;
Within the tangled thickets,
Where poison-vines do creep,
And over rocky ledges,
Wander the poor lost sheep.
Refrain:
O come, let us go and find them;
In the paths of death they roam;
At the close of the day 'twill be sweet to say,
"I have brought some lost one home."
2 O who will go to find them?
Who, for the Saviour's sake,
Will search with tireless patience,
Thro’ brier and thro’ brake?
Unheeding thirst or hunger,
Who still from day to day,
Will seek, as for a treasure,
The sheep that go astray? [Refrain]
3 How sweet 'twound be at evening,
If you and I could say,
Good Shepherd we've been seeking
The sheep that went astray!
Heart-sore and faint with hunger,
We heard them making moan,
And, lo! we come at nightfall,
And bear them safely home. [Refrain]
Source: The Glad Refrain for the Sunday School: a new collection of songs for worship #134
Gates, Ellen, née Huntingdon, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, is the author of several popular pieces in the American Mission and Sunday School hymn-books. Of these the following have passed from the American books into Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos:—
1. Come home, come home, you are weary at heart. Invitation.
2. I am now a child of God. Saved through Jesus.
3. I will sing you a song of that beautiful land. Concerning Heaven.
4. O the clanging bells of time. Yearning for Heaven.
5. Say, is your lamp burning, my brother. Watching and Waiting.
Concerning her poem which is used as a hymn in America, "If you cannot on the ocean" (Duty), Duffield says her account of its origin is as follows:—"The lines were written upo… Go to person page >
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