Bible Songs — Miscellaneous

We'll build on the Rock, the living Rock

No. 1210
Tune BUILD ON THE ROCK.
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key A-flat major
Singing key A♭ major
Time 4/4
3 stanzas

Words

We'll build on the Rock, the living Rock,On Jesus, the Rock of Ages;So shall we abide the fearful shock,When loud the tempest rages.

Chorus.

We'll build on the Rock, on the solid Rock,We'll build on the Rock, on the solid Rock;We'll build on the Rock, on the solid Rock,On Christ, the mighty Rock.

Some build on the sinking sands of life,On visions of earthly treasure;Some build on the waves of sin and strife,Of fame, and worldly pleasure.

O build on the Rock forever sure,The firm and the true foundation;Its hope is the hope which shall endure,The hope of our salvation.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1210» (large, left), title «BUILD ON THE ROCK.» centred (condensed capitals with larger initials); under it the epigraph in three lines, «"Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and* doeth *them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."—Matt. 7 : 24, 25.» («doeth» in italics); «F. E. B.» at the left and «F. E. BELDEN.» at the right (capitals and small capitals); no meter, no reference line and no running head are printed. The three stanzas are interlinear, «1.»–«3.» before the lines of system 1; the chorus, headed «CHORUS.», is printed once and is sung after every stanza. In its first half (system 3) the chorus has two printed lines: the upper one, «We'll build on the Rock, We'll build on the Rock;», stands under the soprano's held notes; the lower one, «We'll build on the Rock, on the sol - id Rock, We'll build on the Rock, on the sol-id Rock;», under the moving alto, tenor and bass. The second half (system 4) has one line for all voices. The chorus is set below in the words of the lower line (the fuller text). «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.» is printed under the music, above the page number «428». The print sets a thin space before «;» and «:» («A - ges ;», «rock :», «7 : 24»); it is closed up here. Words divided under the notes are joined («liv - ing», «for - ev - er», «foun-da-tion» → «living», «forever», «foundation»); each stanza is set in its four verse lines, each beginning with a capital as printed (the print runs two verse lines on each staff line). Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's.