The hymn “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”, joyfully sung by young people from Roseisle Gospel Hall in Manitoba, Canada.
Lyrics:
O Love, that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Light, that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy, that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross, that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
The author of “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”, George Matheson (1842–1906), was a Scottish minister, blind from the age of 17. Of this hymn he said, “I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.” Matheson, age 40, wrote the hymn the day his sister was married. It was likely that he was reflecting on the heartbreak of years before, when his fiancée gave him up due to his going blind. “O Love That Wilt Not Let me Go” went on to become one of the most beloved Christian hymns of all time.
