Still let us on her virtue gaze

Verse 1
Still let us on her Virtue gaze,
With sad delight and wonder trace
The Favourite of the skies
The Child that lives her hundred years
An hoary saint to God appears,
And fill’d with glory dies.

Verse 2
Her from the birth her Lord did draw,
His Spirit with meek, obedient awe
Her tender soul endow’d;
He fix’d the principle within,
The love of truth, the dread of sin,
The hunger after God.

Verse 3
While nature’s will remain’d alive,
He never ceas’d to check, and strive,
And heavenly power impart;
Her heart from evil He with-held,
Till love divine the world expel’d
For ever from her heart.

Verse 4
Thenceforth intirely ruled by grace,
She swiftly ran her even race,
A secret saint unknown,
Stranger to pride, and selfish art,
In singleness of eye and heart
She lived to God alone.

Verse 5
Whoe’er beheld, pronounc’d her blest;
Her walk on earth the Lamb confest
The wisely-simple Dove,
The soul compos’d in Jesus peace
That only languish’d to possess
The fulness of his love.

Verse 6
Unconscious of the love bestow’d
Whence all her words and actions flow’d,
She made her humble moan,
Hid from herself by grace divine,
How sweetly did she wail, and pine
To find the God unknown!

Verse 7
Known by her God, and well approv’d
His servants for his sake she lov’d
His messengers receiv’d,
From death to life her passage show’d
By owning all who own’d her God,
And in his Spirit liv’d.

Verse 8
For them she toil’d with Martha’s hands,
Yet listning for her Lord’s commands
Of Mary’s part possest,
Till Jesus call’d her at his feet,
Spake her glad soul for glory meet,
And caught her to his breast.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “On the Death of Lady Hotham, June 30, 1756, Part I.” Wesley included this hymn in a manuscript known as MS Funeral Hymns. This manuscript appears in the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library at The University of Manchester, accession number MA 1977/578 (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. 6 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 294.
Publishing: Public Domain