“Thou My Daily Task Shall Give”
When sixty ministers, heads of various Summer Schools of Ministerial Training in the Methodist Episcopal Church, met in Evanston, Illinois, to review the work of the previous year and to plan for the future, the leader of the devotions one morning called attention to a hymn of great personal value. Then, on that January day, it was sung with deep feeling as the ministers were just entering on their task for another year. This hymn was written by a layman, Josiah Conder, who “passed a busy life as bookseller, editor and author.” It is well worth committing to memory; at least, such was the conviction of that group of ministers who sang:
“Day by day the manna fell:
O to learn this lesson well!
Still by constant mercy fed,
Give me, Lord, my daily bread.
‘Day by day,’ the promise reads,
Daily strength for daily needs:
Cast foreboding fears away;
Take the manna of today.
Lord! my times are in Thy hand:
All my sanguine hopes have planned,
To Thy wisdom I resign,
And would make Thy purpose mine.
Thou my daily task shalt give:
Day by day to Thee I live;
So shall added years fulfill,
Not my own, my Father’s will.”
The assurance of divine guidance was expressed in the declaration: