We sang this hymn this morning in church. The words were written by John Stocker and appeared in The Gospel Magazine in 1776 and then were later published by Daniel Sedgwick, a great British collector of hymns and a bookseller in the mid-nineteenth century. Sandra McCracken tells the story of how she discovered these old lyrics and wrote new music for them here.
Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair . . .
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy IÂ’’ve found.
I can’t remember whether I first heard this – either when our music pastor introduced it or when a young man we knew included it on a CD he made for fundraising purposes to go into a ministry. But either way, it spoke to me right from the beginning. I was glad to read of the story behind the new tune.