GLADSTONE.
Jesus, pro me perforatus,
Condar intra tuum latus;
Tu per lympham profluentem,
Tu per sanguinem tepentem,
In peccata mi redunda,
Tolle culpam, sordes munda!
Coram Te nec justus forem
Quamvis tota vi laborem,
Nec si fide nunquam cesso,
Fletu stillans indefesso;
Tibi soli tantum munus—
Salva me, Salvator Unus!
Nil in manu mecum fero,
Sed me versus crucem gero:
Vestimenta nudus oro,
Opem debilis imploro,
Fontem Christi quæro immundus,
Nisi laves, moribundus.
Dum hos artus vita regit,
Quando nox sepulcro legit;
Mortuos quum stare jubes,
Sedens Judex inter nubes;—
Jesus, pro me perforatus,
Condar intra tuum latus!
The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.
When I soar thro' tracts unknown
—becomes—
When I soar to worlds unknown,
—getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought 174 / 142 (of the unknown path,—instead of going to many “worlds”). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the “atonement lines.”
But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will,—and as in the twentieth line,—
When my eyestrings break in death;
—modernized to—
When my eyelids close in death,
—the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.