Scripture Verse

Your love is better than life. Psalm 63:3

Introduction

portrait
Fanny Crosby (1820–1915)

Words: Fan­ny Cros­by, in Gos­pel Hymns and Sac­red Songs, by Phi­lip P. Bliss & Ira D. San­key (New York: Big­low & Main, 1875), num­ber 48.

Music: W. How­ard Doane (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Howard Doane (1832–1915)

Origin of the Hymn

Tune pre­ced­ed words in this in­stance. It was in 1875 that Mr. Doane sent the tune to Fan­ny Cros­by, and re­quest­ed her to write a hymn en­ti­tled “Ev­ery day and hour.”

Her re­sponse in the form of this hymn gave the blind hymn-writ­er great com­fort and filled her heart with joy. She felt sure that God would bless the hymn to ma­ny hearts.

Her hope has been most ful­ly ve­ri­fied, for mil­lions have been re­freshed and strength­ened as they have sung it. At the sug­ges­tion of Mr. D. W. Mc­Will­iams, who was su­per­in­ten­dent of Dr. Cuy­ler’s Sun­day-school for twen­ty-five years, it was put in­to “Gos­pel Hymns.”

Sankey, pp. 238–39

Lyrics

Savior, more than life to me,
I am cling­ing, cling­ing, close to Thee;
Let Thy pre­cious blood ap­plied,
Keep me ev­er, ev­er near Thy side.

Refrain

Every day, ev­ery hour,
Let me feel Thy cleans­ing power;
May Thy ten­der love to me
Bind me clos­er, clos­er, Lord to Thee.

Through this chang­ing world be­low,
Lead me gent­ly, gent­ly as I go;
Trusting Thee, I can­not stray,
I can ne­ver, ne­ver lose my way.

Refrain

Let me love Thee more and more,
Till this fleet­ing, fleet­ing life is o’er;
Till my soul is lost in love,
In a bright­er, bright­er world above.

Refrain