The Christian — Faith, Hope, and Charity

O for a faith that will not shrink

No. 677
Metre C. M.
Tune NORTHFIELD.
Words William H. Bathurst.
Music Jeremiah Ingalls.
Key B-flat major
Singing key A♭ major
Time 4/4
5 stanzas

Words

O for a faith that will not shrink,Though pressed by many a foe;That will not tremble on the brinkOf poverty or woe;

That will not murmur or complainBeneath the chastening rod,But in the hour of grief or painCan lean upon its God.

A faith that shines more bright and clearWhen tempests rage without;That when in danger knows no fear,In darkness feels no doubt;

That bears unmoved the world's dread frown,Nor heeds its scornful smile;That sin's wild ocean cannot drown,Nor its soft arts beguile.

Lord, give me such a faith as this,And then, whate'er may come,I'll taste e'en here the hallowed blissOf an eternal home.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: running head «THE CHRISTIAN—FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY.»; hymn number «677» (large), tune name «NORTHFIELD. C. M.» centred over the music (condensed capitals), «JEREMIAH INGALLS.» at the right (capitals and small capitals). Ink figures written by hand at the very top left of the page (above the running head, partly cut off) are not printed and are not transcribed. Stanza 1 is interlinear, with «1.» before «O». NORTHFIELD is a fuguing tune: after the first two lines in plain chords, the third line «That will not tremble on the brink» enters voice by voice — bass, soprano, alto, tenor, each with its own small-type lyric line — and the soprano sings the fourth line twice («Of pov-er-ty or woe, Of pov - er - ty or woe;»), the other voices joining it the second time; the bass sings the third line twice. The stanza below gives each verse line once, as in the earlier hymns with a line repeated in the music; the repetitions are in `lyrics_syllables.txt` and in the score. The italic reference line «446, 669,» (= the same words may be sung to the tunes of hymns 446 or 669) stands under the music and ends with a comma, as printed; stanzas 2–5 follow as text in the left column, numbered «2»–«5» without a full stop (written «2.»–«5.» here), the second and fourth lines of each stanza indented (kept here; stanza 1, interlinear in the print, is laid out the same way), with «William H. Bathurst.» in italics after stanza 5. Stanza 4, line 1 «That bears unmoved the world's dread frown,» is broken by the column width in the print («…dread / frown,») and joined here. The print's thin space before «;» and «?» is closed up; apostrophes are written straight. Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's.