How wretched are the boys at school

Verse 1
How wretched are the boys at school,
Who wickedly delight
To mock, and call each other fool,
And with each other fight!

Verse 2
Who soon their innocency lose,
And learn to curse and swear:
Or, if they do no harm, suppose
That good enough they are.

Verse 3
O how much happier we than they!
We from the paths of vice
Remov’d far off, and taught the way
That leads us to the skies!

Verse 4
We to the Lamb’s atoning blood
Are pointed in our youth,
And rightly taught to worship God
In spirit and in truth.

Verse 5
Yet nought have we whereof to boast,
As wiser than the rest:
He is not wise who knows the most,
But he who lives the best.

Verse 6
If God on us hath much bestow’d,
He will require the more:
We ought to serve and love our God
With all our heart and power.

Verse 7
But if we live in vice and sin,
And make him no return,
Far better it for us had been
That we had ne’er been born.

Verse 8
We shall with many stripes be beat,
The sorest judgment feel,
And of all wicked children meet
The hottest place in hell.

Hymnal/Album: Introduced in Charles Wesley, Hymns for Children (Bristol: E. Farley, 1763). Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 6 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 417.
Publishing: Public Domain