Shall I in desp’erate straits despair,
Or doubt his Providential care?
Forsook, I still retain my hope,
The Lord himself will take me up,
Adopt, and nourish for his son,
And raise the outcast to a throne.
Shall I in desperate straits appear
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘When he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.’—[Acts 7,] v. 21.” 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 The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 12 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 206.
Publishing: Public Domain