Bible Songs — Invitation

Take Me as I Am

Jesus. my Lord, to thee I cry,

No. 1272
Tune TAKE ME AS I AM.
Words E. H. H.
Music Geo. C. Stebbins.
Key A-flat major
Singing key A♭ major
Time 4/4
5 stanzas

Words

Jesus, my Lord, to thee I cry,Unless thou help me I must die;O bring thy free salvation nigh,And take me as I am.

Chorus.

Take me as I am,Take me as I am;Lord, I give myself to thee,O take me as I am.

Helpless I am, and full of guilt,But yet for me thy blood was spilt;And thou canst make me what thou wilt,And take me as I am.

I bow before thy mercy seat,Behold me, Saviour, at thy feet;Thy work begin, thy work complete,And take me as I am.

If thou hast work for me to do,Inspire my will, my heart renew;And work both in, and by me too,And take me as I am.

And when at last the work is done,The battle fought, the vict'ry won;Still, still my cry shall be alone,Lord, take me as I am.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: no running head on p. 488 (the page opens with the hymn); hymn number «1272» (large, left), title «TAKE ME AS I AM.» centred (condensed capitals and small capitals, taller initials T, M, I); under it the epigraph in one line, «"Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee."—Ps. 102 : 1.» (old-style figures); «E. H. H,» at the left (words — the last stop is comma-shaped, so printed) and «GEO. C. STEBBINS.» at the right (music), in capitals and small capitals. No meter, no tune name other than the title and no reference line are printed. The five stanzas are interlinear, between the staves of systems 1–2, numbered «1.», «2,» (a battered point with a tail), «3.», «4.» and «5» (no stop) — written «1.»–«5.» here. «CHORUS» (bold capitals, no stop) stands over the treble at the head of system 3; the chorus words are printed once, on one line under systems 3 and 4, and the chorus is sung after every stanza. Under the music, centred: «By permission.». Each stanza is given here in its four verse lines (the capitals of the print mark them) and the chorus in four. The words divided under the notes are joined here («Je - sus», «Un-less», «Help-less», «be - fore», «mer - cy», «re - new», «bat - tle», «vic - t'ry», «sal - va - tion», «be - gin», «com-plete», «a - lone», «my - self» → «Jesus», «Unless», …); the divisions are in `lyrics_syllables.txt`. «Behold», «Saviour,» and «Inspire» are printed solid under two notes each. The print sets a thin space before «;» and «:» («die ;», «102 : 1»); it is closed up here; curly quotes and apostrophes are written straight («vict'ry»). A few words stand very close together by the justification («Andwhen»); they are separate words. Stanza 1 reads «Jesus.» with a full point where the sense asks a comma (the book's Index of First Lines has «Jesus, my Lord, to thee I cry»): kept as printed — a printer's slip, see `uncertainties.md`. Spelling («Saviour», «vict'ry»), punctuation and capitals (lower-case «thee», «thy», «thou» for God) are the print's.