Scripture Verse

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

Introduction

portrait
Henry T. Smart (1813–1879)

Words: Ano­ny­mous, in the Saintes Mis­sal, 1491. Trans­lat­ed from La­tin to Eng­lish by David T. Mor­gan, Hymns and Oth­er Po­et­ry of the La­tin Church (Lon­don: Riv­ing­tons, 1880).

Music: Faith (Smart) Hen­ry T. Smart, in Hymns An­cient and Mo­dern, 1875 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pho­to of Mor­gan (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),

Lyrics

With hearts re­newed, and cleansed from guilt of sin,
Send we our voic­es peal­ing to the skies;
Let a pure con­science ec­ho joy with­in,
And all our pow­ers in emu­la­tion rise:
To Fa­ther, Son and Ho­ly Spi­rit’s praise,
Three whom one es­sence joins,
One an­them here we raise.

Maker of all, the Fa­ther un­cre­ate,
Of Him from ev­er­last­ing born, the Son,
And the blest Spi­rit of co-eq­ual state
From both pro­ceed­ing, are of sub­stance one:
So in this Tri­nity the Per­sons three
One per­fect Be­ing are,
One God, one Ma­jes­ty.

Yet, none the less, each Per­son of the Trine
God, in His at­tri­butes dis­tinct, we own;
Vainly would rea­son grasp the things di­vine,
Man can but bend ador­ing at God’s throne:
O may the Fa­ther, Son and Spi­rit be
Our help in time of need,
Our joy eter­nal­ly.