Come Now, O Lord

Above:  Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, Cumming, Georgia, Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2015

Image Source = Bill Monk, Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta

Hymn Source = Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969)

Text (1930) by Henry Elias Fries (1857-1949)

Henry Elias Fries composed the text on the afternoon of Pentecost Sunday, 1930, a few hours after the inspiring sermon of the Reverend Herbert J. Johnson, pastor of Fries Memorial Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Fries shared the text with Johnson early that evening.  The minister requested that the author sing the hymn for the congregation at the evening service.  Fries did so, performing it to the tune MORECAMBE, with his wife, Rosa Elvira Mickey Fries (1860-1938), a longtime musician in the congregation, accompanying him.  A week later she composed a tune, PENTECOSTAL HYMN, for the text.  The pairing of the text with that hymn with that tune has been reality in Moravian hymnals since at least the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1942).

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Come now, O Lord, and teach us how to pray.

Teach us to ask ourselves from day to day

If we are Thine and Thine alone will be

Through earthly days and through eternity.

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Come now, O Lord, and search our inmost thought,

Ask if we love and serve Thee as we ought.

Do we attempt to do Thy holy will?

Does constant love for Thee our bosoms fill?

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Come now, O Lord, and from Thy bounteous store,

Teach lukewarm hearts to love Thee more and more,

And many sinners now from Thee astray

Do Thou convert and strengthen day by day.

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Come now, O Lord, and as in days of old

Do Thou to us Thy Spirit now unfold;

Pour forth Thy love and all abounding grace

Till we in spirit see Thee face to face.