A widow on the poor bestow’d

Verse 1
A widow on the poor bestow’d,
Full of good works, divinely good,
(Works in the Spirit of Jesus done,
In faith and love to Christ alone)
Who not on them, but Christ, relies,
She lays up treasure in the skies.

Verse 2
Who thus to God devotes her days
In works of genuine righteousness,
How shall her life the world condemn
Whose life is but an idle dream,
A useless tale, an empty void,
Or all for hell, not heaven, employ’d!

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘This woman was full of good works, and alms-deeds which she did.’—[Acts 9,] v. 36.” This hymn appears in the 1764 manuscript “MS Acts.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/555, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 1). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 332.
Publishing: Public Domain