James Montgomery

For a Religious Anniversary.

Once more, to pay our annual vows,

We to Thy temple, Lord, repair;

While every knee before Thee bows,

And every lip is moved in prayer,

Send down Thy Spirit from above,

Thy Holy Spirit, God of love.

In pentecostal power and grace,

May He baptize us now with fire,

With His sweet presence fill the place,

With faith and hope our hearts inspire,

Faith, seeing what no eye can see,

Hope, breathing immortality.

Through Him to us Thy Son reveal,

In every form that once he wore,

When with His blood, our peace to seal,

Our sins He in His body bore,

For all a full atonement made,

For each a priceless ransom paid.

The helpless child in Bethlehem born,

Heaven's pilgrim through earth's wilderness,

The man of sorrows and of scorn,

Him as our Lord we would confess.

And nothing know, or seek beside

Christ Jesus, and Him crucified.

So may we in His likeness grow,

God in the flesh made manifest --

Through whom Thine Image, lost below,

On souls new-born is reimpress'd;

No longer kindred to the clod,

Though sons of Adam, sons of God.