Verse 1
Except the Lord conduct the plan,
Our best-concerted schemes are vain,
And never can succeed;
We spend our wretched strength for nought:
But if our works in God are wrought,
They shall be blest indeed.

Verse 2
Lord, if thou didst thyself inspire
Our hearts with this intense desire
Thy goodness to proclaim,
Thy glory if we now intend;
O let our deed begin and end
Compleat in Jesus’ name.

Verse 3
In Jesus’ name behold we meet!
Far from an evil world retreat,
And all its frantic ways,
One only thing resolv’d to know,
And square our useful lives below
By reason and by grace.

Verse 4
Not in the tombs we pine to dwell,
Not in the dark monastic cell
By vows and grates confin’d;
Freely to all ourselves we give,
Constrain’d by Jesu’s love to live
The servants of mankind.

Verse 5
Now Jesus, now, thy love impart,
To govern each devoted heart,
And fit us for thy will,
Deep founded in the truth of grace
Build up our rising church, and place
The city on the hill.

Verse 6
O let our faith and love abound,
O let our lives to all around
With purest lustre shine,
That all, but us, our works may see,
And give the glory, Lord, to thee,
The heavenly light divine.