Scripture Verse

Come to Me. Matthew 11:28

Introduction

Words: George F. Root, in The Palm, ed­it­ed by C. M. Wy­man (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: Root & Ca­dy, 1870), page 247.

Music: In­vi­ta­tion (Root) George F. Root, 1870 (🔊 pdf nwc).

Alternate Tune:

portrait
George F. Root (1820–1895)

Anecdote

In 1879 I was as­sist­ing in re­viv­al meet­ings in Dan­ville, Ca­li­for­nia, writes the pas­tor of a Pres­by­ter­ian Church at Oak­land.

The meet­ings were well at­tend­ed and good in­ter­est was ex­hibi­ted, but for a long time there were no con­ver­sions.

In the neigh­bor­hood there was a man who, with his wife and child­ren, at­tend­ed the church re­gu­lar­ly, and he was one of its lib­er­al sup­port­ers.

They were most ex­cel­lent peo­ple, but could not be in­duced to pro­fess Christ, and did not call them­selves Chris­tians.

One day, while the men were hold­ing ser­vic­es in the church, the wo­men were hav­ing a pray­er-meet­ing in the manse near by.

In the course of the meet­ing they sang Come to the Sav­iour, make no de­lay.

The sing­ing ov­er, they were about to en­gage in pray­er, when the la­dy above re­ferred to asked them to sing the last verse of this hymn…The la­dy was great­ly af­fect­ed, and when the sing­ing ceased she said with deep emo­tion: ‘Yes, I will not stay away any long­er.’

The wo­men were all deep­ly moved, and prayed and praised God with warm hearts.

When the word reached the men they were great­ly en­cour­aged at the good news. A re­viv­al fol­lowed, and at the close of a touch­ing ser­vice a few days lat­er, when a call was made for per­sons who de­sired to unite with the church, this la­dy and her hus­band were the first to re­spond.

They were fol­lowed by some of their own child­ren and ma­ny oth­er per­sons—in all twen­ty-one.

This hymn seemed to have been the means of reach­ing the wife’s heart, and of open­ing the way for the bless­ing which fol­lowed.

Sankey, pp. 145–46

Lyrics

Come to the Sav­ior, make no de­lay;
Here in His Word He has shown us the way;
Here in our midst He’s stand­ing today,
Tenderly say­ing, Come!

Refrain

Joyful, joy­ful will the meet­ing be,
When from sin our hearts are pure and free;
And we shall ga­ther, Sav­ior, with Thee,
In our eter­nal home.

Suffer the child­ren! oh, hear His voice!
Let ev’ry heart leap forth and re­joice;
And let us free­ly make Him our choice;
Do not de­lay, but come.

Refrain

Think once again, He’s with us to­day;
Heed now His blest com­mand, and obey;
Hear now His ac­cents ten­der­ly say,
Will you, My child­ren, come?

Refrain