Week 15: Writing IV

Handouts:

• Leader
• Participant

Blest Be the Dear Uniting Love

Text: Charles Wesley (1707–1788), 1742

• Published in the 1742 edition of Hymns and Sacred Poems

Tune: William Henry Havergal (1823–1876), 1847

• British pastor, educated at Oxford
• Served in a number of churches in rural England
• Most of his 100+ hymns were written for special occasions and services in his churches

1. The original fourth verse, omitted in the United Methodist Hymnal, reads:

   Closer and closer, let us cleave
   to his belov’d embrace;
   expect his fullness to receive,
   and grace to answer grace.

   How do you interpret this phrase “grace to answer grace”? Does this stanza fit with the rest of the hymn, or were the editors right to exclude it?

Exercises

1. Write a third hymn verse about individual growth as a Christian. Earlier brainstorms mentioned learning patience, listening for God’s direction, and focusing on giving to the church rather than on what you “get” from it. Start with this line: “O Christian seeker, child of God…”