Ah! Lord, we must with shame confess

Verse 1
Ah! Lord, we must with shame confess,
Tho’ Thou art ready still to bless,
Few in their harmless infancy
Will let their babes be brought to Thee:
We tremble lest thy gracious touch
Shoud make them righteous over much,
Defeat our worldly hopes and aim
And brand them with their Master’s shame.

Verse 2
We fear, lest when thy grace or’epowers,
Our children shoud be thine, not ours,
Shoud unto God their hearts resign,
And only seek the things Divine:
We never shall devote our race,
Or yield them up to thine embrace,
Or’ewhelm’d with our own misery,
Unless we come ourselves to Thee.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not.’—[Matt.] 19:14.” This hymn appears in the 1783 manuscript “MS Scriptural Hymns.” 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 1977/576, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 10 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 323.
Publishing: Public Domain