In lowly life with sorrow rife and tears bewet,
Briar and thorn, reproach and scorn, He meekly met;
And in His ways, before our gaze, God’s love He set.
Yea, on the cross, ’mid shame and loss, despised, denied,
With thorn-crowned head, His blood He shed for sin, and died,
And dying thus, God’s love to us was verified.
Thus all unsought He mercy brought to Adam’s race;
Who all deceived had long believed the falsehood base,
That God was hard nor did regard our desperate case;
Of that foul fame He on God’s name left not a trace.
In all His ways, thro’ all His days, His every breath,
His work, His word, beheld and heard, His life, His death
The heart of God proclaimed abroad for hope and faith.
Here brightly shines in living lines before our gaze
The heavenly light in all its bright unsullied blaze,
By which we read His love indeed in Jesus ways,
And in that shrine of light divine to Him we raise
Our sweetest songs, to Whom belongs eternal praise.