A blessing from God's presence

32 C. M.
A blessing from God’s presence.

GREAT Shepherd of thy people, hear;
   Thy presence now display;
   We kneel within thy house of prayer;
   O give us hearts to pray.

2 The clouds which veil thee from our sight,
   In pity, Lord, remove;
   Dispose our minds to hear aright
   The message of thy love.

3 Help us, with holy fear and joy,
   To kneel before thy face;
   O make us, creatures of thy power,
   The children of thy grace.
                  John Newton
                  Methodist Episcopal Hymnal (1870 edition)

<idle musing>
This one is interesting in that there seems to be a wide variety of versions out there. At hymnary.org there is one version with seven verses, only the first of which agrees with this version. In fact, when I did a search there, I didn't see any that agreed with this version; in fact, a search for the first line of the second verse came up empty. Makes you wonder what the original really looked like…
</idle musing>