Hymn 233. Faith in the Joys of Heaven

Faith leads to joys beyond the sky;

Why then is this weak mind

Afraid to raise a cheerful eye

To more than sense can find?

Sense can but furnish scenes of woe,

In this low vale of tears;

No groves of heavenly pleasures grow,

No Paradise appears.

Ah! why should this mistaken mind

Still rove with restless pain?  

Delight on earth expect to find,

Yet still expect in vain?

Faith, rising upward, points her view,

To regions in the skies;

There lovelier scenes than Eden knew,                                                                

In bright perspective rise.  

Oh!  if this Heaven-born grace were mine,

Would not my spirit soar,

Transported gaze on joys divine,

And cleave to earth no more?                                                               

If in my heart true faith appears,

How weak the sacred ray!

Feebly aspiring, prest with fears,

Almost it dies away.

O thou, from whose almighty breath

It first began to rise,

Purge off these mists, these dregs of earth,

And bid it reach the skies.

Let this weak, erring mind no more,

On earth bewilder’d rove, 

But with celestial ardour soar

To endless joys above.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 1, pp. 80-81; Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, no. 233 (all stanzas); Poems, 1780, vol. 1, pp. 70-71; MS, Steele Collection, STE 3/1/1 no. 35, Angus Library, Regents Park College,  Oxford.