Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
I will be singing in my Stake Choir next week. One of the songs we will be singing is Mack Wilberg's arrangement of "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." This is a wonderful, poetic and powerful hymn dedicated to Jesus Christ who is our foundation and "stone of help."
1. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;Streams of mercy, never ceasing,Call for songs of loudest praise.Teach me some melodious sonnet,Sung by flaming tongues above.Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,Mount of Thy redeeming love.
2. Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I’ve come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.
3. Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.
4. O to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.
6 comments:
I think this is the greatest hymn arrangement ever done, by one of the greatest arrangers in history. Before Mack did the hymn it was one of my least favorites, but now it's my favorite. I spent 20 years in the Tabernacle Choir, so this is not a totally uninformed opinion.
After hearing the arrangement for the first time at BYU, I had always hoped to be able to sing it. Our choir will be accompanied by 2 violins, organ and piano to keep us on key during the Acapella parts. I am singing first tenor which is wonderfully challenging. However, our section has been able to sing it very comfortably and not strained. We have a great section of first sappranos that have the range to sing the high notes at the end, but it sounded a little over-the-top for the size of our choir so we decided against it. Overall, for our size and talent, I am very happy with how our choir performs this piece.
Do you know what the history of this song is? In the line mentions Ebenezer, what is that referring to?
This song has always been one of my favorites, but when I pulled up the text, I wasn't sure what the history behind it all was.
this song is written by a man named robert robinson. he wrote it to complete a sermon he was preaching in some church. we just talked about it in seminary. the ebenezer part refers to biblical times, when they would raise statues known as an ebenezer as a symbol of the help they needed from god. so, bye saying here i raise my ebenezer is like saying here is referring to asking god for help. i also love the verse saying "prone to wonder, lord i fee lit, prone to leave the god i love." at the end of robinsons life, he was no longer an avid christian. he had fallen away from his faith and upon reading this hymn again he wept and declared that he would give anything to have those feelings again.
thats my insight :) i don't know how old this comment was..... or if you've found your aswer already.. but there it is.
just to add to the ebenezer history i just gave, its found in 1 samuel 7:12:
"Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."
While waiting for the women's broadcast yesterday, I heard this hynm which I love so much. When I googled it your blog and the lyrics came up which are different from original hymn. It inspires such righteous desire and yet understanding of human frailty.Thanks for posting the lyrics.
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