The wanderer from his Father’s face

Verse 1
The wanderer from his Father’s face,
Who now has wasted all his grace,
On earth can nothing find
To satisfy his soul with food,
Or give the smallest taste of good
To his immortal mind.

Verse 2
Who happy without God would be
Finds only want and misery,
When God is quite remov’d;
How void the spirit, if God’s depart!
And O, what famine in the heart
Where Jesus is not lov’d?

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.'—[Luke 15,] v. 14.” 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 S.T. Kimbrough Jr. and Oliver A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, vol. 2 (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1990), page 155. Verse 2 was 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 234.
Publishing: Public Domain