To close worship this morning at mgpc we sang Charles Wesley’s O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing to the tune Lyngham extended. All eight verses.
It rocked.
As I’ve written in the past, we used this tune for our Christmas rendition of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks and the men and women remembered their respective parts perfectly and during the unison parts went off like frogs in socks sang with great enthusiasm.
I’ve recently used the tune Azmon instead, for simplicity’s sake, but mgpc are well and truly up to this presently.
We sang eight full verses. (Hymntime has eighteen verses.)
1.
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace.
2.
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad,
The honors of thy Name.
3.
Jesus, the Name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
‘Tis life, and health, and peace.
4.
He breaks the pow’r of cancelled sin,
He sets the pris’ner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
5.
He speaks and, list’ning to his voice,
New life the dead receive;
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice;
The humble poor believe.
6
Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosen’d tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come;
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
7.
Look unto Him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.
8.
Glory to God, and praise and love
Be ever, ever given,
By saints below and saints above,
The church in earth and Heaven.
Now, providentially, today’s Songs of Praise was a repeat episode that included a rendition of… O For A Thousand Tongues.
And to my mind, this is just the right speed. Of course, this was a choir, so a congregation may not be able to manage this at such a crisp pace, but I like to keep this sort of songs moving.
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