Go to Dark Gethsemane

281 Go to Dark Gethsemane

1 Go to dark Gethsemane,
   You who feel the tempter's pow'r;
   Your Redeemer's conflict see;
   Watch with Him one bitter hour;
   Turn not from His griefs away;
   Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

2 Follow to the judgment hall;
   View the Lord of life arraigned;
   O the worm-wood and the gall!
   O the pangs His soul sustained!
   Shun not suff'ring, shame, or loss;
   Learn of Him to bear the cross.

3 Calv'ry's mournful mountain climb
   There' adoring at His feet,
   Mark the miracle of time,
   God's own sacrifice complete:
   "It is finished!" Hear the cry;
   Learn of Jesus Christ to die.
                         James Montgomery
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
I've never sung this hymn, although it occurs in more than 800 hymnals. Hymnary.org inserts a fourth verse:

4 Early hasten to the tomb
   Where they laid his breathless clay;
   All is solitude and gloom;
   Who hath taken Him away?
   Christ is ris'n! He meets our eyes:
   Savior, teach us so to rise.

I like that. Without the fourth verse, the hymn seems truncated and hopeless.
</idle musing>

Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain

276 Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain

1 Come to Calvary's holy mountain
   sinners ruined by the fall;
   Here a pure and healing fountain
   Flows to you, to me, to all,
   In a full perpetual tide,
   Opened when our Savior died.

2 Come in poverty and meanness,
   Come, defiled without, within;
   From imperfection and uncleanness,
   From the leprosy of sin,
   Wash your robes and make them white;
   Ye shall walk with God in light.

3 Come, in sorrow and contrition,
   Wounded, impotent, and blind;
   Here the guilty, free remission,
   Here the troubled peace may find.
   Health this fountain will restore;
   He that drinks shall thirst no more.

4 He that drinks shall live forever,
   'Tis a soul-renewing flood;
   God is faithful; God will never
   Break His covenant of blood;
   Signed when our Redeemer died,
   Sealed when He was glorified.
                         James Montgomery
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Stand up and bless the Lord

39 Old 134th (St. Michael). S. M.

1 Stand up, and bless the Lord,
   ye people of His choice;
   stand up, and bless the Lord your God
   with heart, and soul, and voice.

2 Though high above all praise,
   above all blessing high,
   who would not fear His holy Name,
   and laud and magnify?

3 O for the living flame,
   from His own altar brought,
   to touch our lips, our minds inspire,
   and wing to heav'n our thought!

4 God is our strength and song,
   and His salvation ours;
   then be His love in Christ proclaimed
   with all our ransomed pow'rs.

5 Stand up and bless the Lord,
   the Lord your God adore;
   stand up, and bless His glorious Name
   henceforth for evermore.
                         James Montgomery
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
I recall this as an opening hymn, a nice rousing beginning. In the Methodist church, the opening processional has all the congregation stand, so it's a fitting hymn.

Hymnary.org adds another verse as verse 4:

4 There, with benign regard,
   our hymns He deigns to hear;
   though unrevealed to mortal sense,
   the spirit feels Him near.

</idle musing>