Text:Ye Must Be Born Again
Author:William True Sleeper
Tune:[A ruler once came to Jesus by night]
Composer:George Coles Stebbins
Media:MIDI file

7767. Ye Must Be Born Again

1. A ruler once came to Jesus by night
To ask Him the way of salvation and light;
The Master made answer in words true and plain,
Ye must be born again.

Refrain
Ye must be born again,
Ye must be born again,
I verily, verily, say unto thee,
Ye must be born again.

2. Ye children of men, attend to the Word,
So solemnly uttered by Jesus the Lord;
And let not this message to you be in vain,
Ye must be born again. [Refrain]

3. O ye who would enter that glorious rest,
And sing with the ransomed the song of the blest,
The life everlasting if ye would obtain,
"Ye must be born again." [Refrain]

4. A dear one in Heaven thy heart yearns to see,
At the beautiful gate may be watching for thee,
Then list to the note of this solemn refrain,
"Ye must be born again." [Refrain]

Text Information
First Line: A ruler once came to Jesus by night
Title: Ye Must Be Born Again
Author: William True Sleeper (1877)
Refrain First Line: Ye must be born again
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain
Tune Information
Name: [A ruler once came to Jesus by night]
Composer: George Coles Stebbins
Incipit: 13333 45654 55554
Key: E♭ Major
Copyright: Public Domain
Notes: This song was writ­ten while Steb­bins was help­ing Dr. George Pen­te­cost in evan­gel­is­tic meet­ings in Wor­ces­ter, Mass­a­chu­setts: During those meet­ings, one of the sub­jects preached up­on was the "New Birth." While pre­sent­ing the truth, en­forc­ing it by re­fer­ring to var­i­ous pass­ag­es of Scrip­ture, Dr. Pen­te­cost quot­ed our Lord’s words to Ni­co­dem­us, "Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, I say un­to thee, ye must be born again"…It oc­curred to me that by tak­ing the line "Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, I say un­to thee," from the third verse, and put­ting it with the line, "Ye must be born again," and by trans­fer­ring the word "I" from the mid­dle of the first line to the be­gin­ning, so it would read, "I ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, say un­to thee, Ye must be born again," those pas­sag­es would then fall in­to rhyth­mic­al form, and by the use of some re­pe­ti­tions could be made avail­a­ble for a mu­sic­al set­ting, and al­so for a chor­us to the hymn, if some suit­a­ble vers­es could be found…I spoke to Rev­er­end…Sleep­er, one of the pas­tors of the ci­ty who some­times wrote hymns, of my im­press­ion and asked him if he would write me some vers­es on the sub­ject. He act­ed at once on my sug­gest­ion and soon af­ter came to me with the hymn…Be­fore the meet­ings closed a mu­sic­al set­ting was made. George Stebbins, Mem­oirs and Rem­i­nis­cenc­es



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(Cyber Hymnal)
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(Cyber Hymnal)
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(Cyber Hymnal)
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