Father, I stretch my hands to thee

This hymn below was written by Charles Wesley. “Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee” is very popular as a lined hymn in black churches.

The hymnal Songs of Zion presents a lined-version of musical notation for Wesley’s hymn “Father, I stretch my hands to thee.” Ethnomusicologist Eileen Southern says that this lined format is a “novel inclusion” that “reflects the importance given by the compilers to the validity of oral traditions” in the black churches.[i] According to Southern this is an embellished version of the hymn tune Martyrdom by Hugh Wilson.[ii] In The Sacred Harp tradition, arrangements of the tune are titled Sacred Throne (Denson Book) and The Christian’s Desire (Cooper Book), and often called Avon in the general shape-note tradition.

1. Father, I stretch my hands to thee;
No other help I know.
If thou withdraw’st thyself from me,
Ah! whither shall I go?

2. What did thine only Son endure,
Before I drew my breath!
What pain, what labor to secure
My soul from endless death!

3. O Jesu, could I this believe,
I now should feel thy power;
Now my poor soul thou would’st retrieve,
Nor let me wait one hour.

4. Author of faith, to thee I lift
My weary, longing eyes:
O let me now receive that gift!
My soul with­out it dies!

5. Surely thou canst not let me die;
Oh, speak and I shall live;
And here I will unwearied lie,
’Till thou thy Spirit give.

6. The worst of sinners would rejoice,
Could they but see thy face:
O let me hear thy quick’ning voice,
And taste thy pard’ning grace.

Recordings of “Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee” on YouTube:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLi222YmsKY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D5LrCTmzk8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0i2rQB-Xw
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEE0UIuvpvQ

Excerpt of the lined tune in Songs of Zion

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[i] Page 166, “Hymnals of the Black Church,” Eileen Southern, The Black Perspective in Music, Volume 17, No. 1/2 (1989), pp. 153-170.
[ii] Songs of Zion, J. Jefferson Cleveland, Verolga Nix, editors. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1981, No. 11. Southern says this book “must be counted among the great monuments of black-church music.” The introduction explains about lined-out hymnody: “In metering or ‘lining out’ a hymn such as ‘Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee,’ the first phrase is spoken or chanted by one person before everyone responds.” (This is followed by an example.) “In the lined-out hymns, simultaneous embellishment of the basic melody is highly recommended.” p. xvi.