Thou must be born again

Representative Text

Thou must be born again!
Such was the solemn word
To him who came, not all in vain,
By night to seek his Lord.

Thou must be born again!
But not the birth of clay;
The immortal seed must thence obtain
Deliverance into day.

Thou, in thy inmost mind,
Must own the same control;
The same regenerating wind
Must move and guide thy soul.

Thou canst not choose but trace
The steps the Master trod,
If once thou feel his truth and grace,
A conscious child of God.

The mortal’s birth is past;
The immortal’s birth must be;
Seek well and thou shalt find at last
That blest nativity.

Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #200

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Author: John Johns

Johns, John, born at Plymouth, March 17, 1801, the son of an artist. Educated at the grammar school and by the Rev. I. Worsley, Unitarian minister at Plymouth, and afterwards spent two years at Edinburgh. In 1820 became minister of the old Presbyterian chapel at Crediton, where he remained till his removal to Liverpool in 1836, as Minister to the Poor. He was a man of fine poetic temperament and retiring disposition, but his work among the people called out his great practical and organising ability. He died a sacrifice to the fever which raged in the district where he laboured, June 23, 1847. Besides his reports to the Liverpool Domestic Mission Society, and frequent contributions to the Monthly Repository, Christian Reformer, and Christia… Go to person page >

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