Behold the path which mortals tread

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Behold the path which mortals tread

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 46 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Behold the path which mortals tread
Down to the regions of the dead!
Nor will the fleeting moments stay,
Nor can we measure back our way.

2 Our kindred and our friends are gone;
Know, O my soul, this doom thy own.
Feeble as theirs thy mortal frame,
The same thy way, thy home the same.

3 From vital air, from cheerful light,
To the cold grave's perpetual night,—
From scenes of duty, means of grace,
Must I to God's tribunal pass!

4 Awake, my soul! thy way prepare,
And lose in this each meaner care;
With steady feet that path be trod,
Which, thro' the grave, conducts to God.

5 Father! to thee my all I trust;
And, if my flesh return to dust,
'Tis thy decree, I bless thy hand,
And die resign'd to thy command.

Source: A Collection of Hymns and A Liturgy: for the use of Evangelical Lutheran Churches; to which are added prayers for families and individuals #477

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Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Behold the path which mortals tread
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Job 16:22
(hymns)

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Notes

Behold the path that [which] mortals tread. P. Doddridge. [Journey of Life.] In the Doddridge Manuscript, this hymn is No. 44, but is undated. It was published as No. 27 in J. Orton's edition of Doddridge's (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, and again in J. D. Humphreys’ edition of the same, 1839. It is in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled "The Great Journey. Job xvi. 22." Its use is chiefly confined to America.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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