Friday, September 25, 2009

Might Not Want To Resurrect This Old Hymn

There is a great trend happening in today's church music culture of taking old hymn lyrics and changing the melody so as to give it a fresh rebirth.

I'm not sure if it would work to do it with this one though...

Blest is the Man Whose Bowels Move
Isaac Watts, 1674-1748

1.Blest is the man whose bowels move,
And melt with pity to the poor;
Whose soul, by sympathizing love,
Feels what his fellow saints endure.

2. His heart contrives for their relief
More good than his own hands can do;
He, in the time of gen'ral grief,
Shall find the Lord has bowels too.

3. His soul shall live secure on earth,
With secret blessings on his head,
When drought, and pestilence, and dearth
Around him multiply their dead.

4. Or if he languish on his couch,
God will pronounce his sins forgiv'n;
Will save him with a healing touch,
Or take his willing soul to heav'n.

4 comments:

B-Lo said...

Bro, I literally could not control my laughing out loud. Everyone in the office was looking at me weird.

Jerry said...

KJV, "bowels of compassion". )

We could re-write the first stanza as follows:

Blessed is the man whose heart is moved,
And melts with pity for the poor;
Whose soul, by sympathizing love,
Feels what his fellow saints endure.

Matt Blick said...

It's only a matter of time, Bro!

But seriously, if you want a modern song involving bowels, look no further!

robert said...

Yep, Dr. Watts's use of "bowels" to represent our inward being or heart sounds decidedly strange today. Come to think of it, "heart" is just as odd. But we have become accustomed to using that organ to represent the emotions.