Sunday School Hymn

O God! can Christian hearts be cold,

To childhood’s suffering sigh?

And dare their Master’s boon withhold,

And let such sinners die?

No, by his mercy’s high behest,

We feel the sacred charms,

That beam’d o’er Infancy distress’d,

When shelter’d in his arms.

While Strangers on the world’s rude wave,

These helpless babes we see;                                                                

We’ll stretch our pitying hands to save,

And nurse them Lord for thee.

                                             Novr 26th 1809

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011),  vol. 5, p. 97; Box 27/1, Reeves Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford.