The servant of the Lord

Verse 1
The servant of the Lord,
Who Jesus’ charge receives,
A faithful steward of the word,
A wrestling Jacob lives:
God and the multitude
His sacred labours share,
His day is spent in active good,
His night in fervent prayer.

Verse 2
Before the rising morn
He comes his flock to feed,
His flock with hungry hearts return,
And seek their daily bread:
Their love and earnestness
The pastor’s zeal improve,
The pastor’s zeal doth more increase
Their earnestness and love.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘In the day-time he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and abode in the mount, And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him.'—[Luke 21,] v. 37, 38.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” 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 1977/575, 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. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 280.
Publishing: Public Domain