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OUT OF THE DEPTHS

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 9, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 19.

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OUT OF THE DEPTHS

O Lord, I am weary and broken, My life draweth nigh to the grave! Remember the word thou hast spoken, The penitent sinner to save. In darkness long time have I wandered, My feet to destruction made haste, And, like the poor prodigal, squandered My substance in riotous waste.
O God, that a soul thou hast given To revel ’mid pleasures divine, By Satan and sin should be driven To wallow and feed with the swine! O Grace, flowing full like a river, O Love, like a fount flowing free, O mighty One, strong to deliver, Wash, purify, strengthen, help me!
Too long have I lingered around it, The world’s Circe-goblet to sip; Like apples of Sodom have found it But ashes and dust on the lip. For ashes and dust shall I proffer To yield me to Satan’s control? World, hast thou no better to offer, To give in exchange for a soul?
O pleasure and riches and glory, Ye baits of the devil to man! Ye tell us the very same story Since the dawn of creation began. “Pluck, eat,” saith the tempter, “I receive not, A tyrant’s decree from on high! His threats or his promise believe not; Ye shall live, and shall not surely die.”
Dark spirit, thy subject no longer, For pardoning grace I have kneeled To a mightier far, and a stronger;— Jehovah’s my strength and my shield. In joy I will ask him to stay me, In sorrow, will bow ’neath his rod; And say, even though he should slay me, Like Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”
— Selected.