More Love To Thee

More Love To Thee

Elizabeth Prentiss had always been known by her friends to be bright-eyed and having a good sense of humor. She loved life but under the cheery exterior, she lived a life of chronic pain.

Elizabeth lived with pain her whole life and had become a near invalid, but she had learned to accept her condition and keep her eyes focused on God - not an easy task in the early 19th century. She managed her life quite well, in spite of her condition. She was a gifted writer who sold over 200,000 copies of one of her books.

Her hardest hour was yet to come, however. In a few week’s time, she suffered the loss of two of her children. In her anguish, she expressed her desire to give up and leave this life. When a third child became ill, she wrote the following:

“Alas, my faith seemed, for a time, to flee, and I could see what a poor, weak human being is without it. But, before daylight crept into my room, light from on high streamed into my heart.”

It was during this dark time of life that she consoled herself by reading her Bible. She wrote in her diary, “To love Christ is the deepest need ... the whisper keeps going up for more love, more love, more love!”

As she read the story of Jacob, fleeing his own brother, who dreamt of heaven while he slept on a stone pillow, Elizabeth familiarized herself with a song written by Sarah Adams about Jacob’s plight. That song was “Nearer, My God, To Thee.”

Elizabeth took her pen and began to write about her own dark journey of pain. Her poem was written in the same meter as Adam’s hymn, but it expressed her own outpouring of love to a Christ who had never abandoned her, never left her, no matter what came her way in life.

She wrote her poem in a single night but kept it to herself for 13 years. Then, in 1869, when she felt that the time was right, she published it under the title, “More Love to Thee.”

William Doane, the famous composer who wrote thousands of the hymns we know today, loved it so much that he wrote the music that was composed specifically for Elizabeth’s hymn. It is now a timeless classic.

MORE LOVE TO THEE

1-More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee!

Hear Thou the prayer I make on bended knee;

This is my earnest plea: More love, O Christ, to Thee;

More love to Thee, more love to Thee!

2-Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest;

Now Thee alone I seek, give what is best;

This all my prayer shall be: More love, O Christ, to Thee;

More love to Thee, more love to Thee!

3-Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain;

Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,

When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;

More love to Thee, more love to Thee!

4-Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise;

This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;

This still its prayer shall be: More love, O Christ, to Thee;

More love to Thee, more love to Thee!