O Lord, Thy all discerning eyes

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O Lord, Thy all discerning eyes

Author: John Quincy Adams
Published in 7 hymnals

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Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1. O Lord, Thy all discerning eyes
My inmost purpose see;
My deeds, my words, my thoughts, arise
Alike disclosed to Thee:
My sitting down, my rising up,
Broad noon, and deepest night,
My path, my pillow, and my cup,
Are open to Thy sight.

2. Before, behind, I meet Thine eye,
And feel Thy heavy hand:
Such knowledge is for me too high,
To reach or understand:
What of Thy wonders can I know?
What of Thy purpose see?
Where from Thy Spirit shall I go?
Where from Thy presence flee?

3. If I ascend to Heaven on high,
Or make my bed in hell;
Or take the morning’s wings, and fly
O’er ocean’s bounds to dwell;
Or seek, from Thee, a hiding place
Amid the gloom of night—
Alike to Thee are time and space,
The darkness and the light.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #5151

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Author: John Quincy Adams

Adams, John Quincy. (Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767-February 21, 1848, Washington, D.C.). Most of Adams' verse, both religious and secular, was written after he had left the Presidency. In his later years he composed a metrical version of the Psalms, best described as a free rendering in fairly good verse of what he felt was the essential idea of each Psalm. When his minister, William P. Lunt, of the First Parish, (Unitarian), Quincy, Mass., undertook the preparation of his hymn book The Christian Psalter, Mrs. Adams put the manuscript of her husband's metrical Psalms into Lunt's hands, and the latter included 17 of them in his book, and five other hymns by his distinguished parishioner. The effect on Adams is recorded in a moving entr… Go to person page >

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