Scripture Verse

The kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed…which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree. Matthew 13:31–32

Introduction

portrait
Kristian Ostergaard
1855–1931

Words: Kris­tian Os­ter­gaard (1855–1931) (Den Sag er ald­rig i Ver­den tabt). Trans­lat­ed from Da­nish to Eng­lish by Jens C. Aa­berg (1877–1970).

Music: Os­ter­gaard Dan­ish folk tune (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Jens C. Aaberg
1877–1970

Lyrics

That cause can never be lost nor stayed
Which takes the course of what God has made;
And is not trusting in walls and towers,
But slowly growing from seeds to flowers.

Each noble service that men have wrought
Was first conceived as a fruitful thought;
Each worthy cause with a future glorious
By quietly growing becomes victorious.

Thereby itself like a tree it shows:
That high it reaches, as deep it grows;
And when the storms are its branches shaking,
It deeper root in the soil is taking.

Be then no more by a storm dismayed,
For by it the full grown seeds are laid;
And though the tree by its might it shatters,
What then, if thousands of seeds it scatters?