Sight, hearing, felling, taste and smell

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Sight, hearing, felling, taste and smell

Author: John Newton
Published in 4 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Sight, hearing, feeling, taste and smell,
Are gifts we highly prize;
But these may downward lead to hell,
While faith to heaven doth rise.

2 More piercing than the eagle's sight,
Faith views the world unknown:
Surveys the glorious realms of light,
And Jesus on the throne.

3 It hears the mighty voice of God,
And ponders what he saith;
His word and works, his gifts and rod,
Have each a voice to faith.

4 It feels the touch of heavenly power,
And from the boundless source,
Derives fresh vigor every hour
To run its daily course.

5 The truth and goodness of the LORD
Are suited to its tasks;
Mean is the worldling's pampered board,
To faith's perpetual feast.

6 Till saving faith possess the mind,
In vain of sense we boast;
We are but senseless, tasteless, blind,
And deaf, and dead, and lost.

The Hartford Selection of Hymns from the most approved authors, 1799

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Author: John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumultuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

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