Scripture Verse

Thy kingdom come. Matthew 6:10

Introduction

portrait
Berthold Tours (1838–1897)

Words: Vi­da D. Scud­der, 1913. Ap­peared in So­cial Hymns of Bro­ther­hood and As­pi­ra­tion, ed­it­ed by Ma­bel Hay Bar­rows Mus­sey (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1914), num­ber 10.

Music: Tours Ber­thold Tours, 1872 (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Vida Scudder (1861–1954)

Lyrics

Thy king­dom, Lord, we long for,
Where love shall find its own;
And bro­ther­hood tri­umph­ant
Our years of pride dis­own.
Thy cap­tive peo­ple lang­uish
In mill and mart and mine;
We lift to Thee their ang­uish,
We wait Thy pr­omised sign!

Thy king­dom, Lord, Thy king­dom!
All se­cret­ly it grows;
In faith­ful hearts for­ev­er
His seed the Sow­er sows.
Yet ere its con­sum­ma­tion
Must dawn a migh­ty doom;
For judg­ment and sal­va­tion
The Son of man shall come.

If now per­chance in tu­mult
His des­tined sign ap­pear—
The ris­ing of the peo­ple—
Dispel our cow­ard fear!
Let com­forts that we cher­ish,
Let old tra­di­tion die;
Our wealth, our wis­dom per­ish,
So that He draw but nigh.

Beyond our sad con­fu­sion,
Our strife of speech and sword,
The wars of class and na­tion,
We wait Thy cer­tain word.
The meek and poor of spir­it
Who in Thy pro­mise trust
Thy king­dom shall in­her­it,
The bless­ing of the just.