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Introduction
In The Spectator for Saturday August 9th, 1712, Joseph Addison reflected on the virtue of gratitude towards God, who “does not only confer upon us those bounties, which proceed more immediately from his hand, but even those benefits which are conveyed to us by others.” Gratitude was one area, he said, where the poets of the Old Testament far surpassed the poets of classical Greece and Rome, because they had a deity more worthy of it; and he closed with his own attempt.
WHEN all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise.
O how shall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare,
That glows within my ravish’d heart?
But thou canst read it there.
Thy providence my life sustain’d,
And all my wants redrest,
When in the silent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast.
To all my weak complaints and cries,
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learnt
To form themselves in pray’r.
Unnumber’d comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestow’d,
Before my infant heart conceiv’d
From whom those comforts flow’d.
When in the slipp’ry paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen convey’d me safe,
And led me up to man.
Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently clear’d my way,
And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be fear’d than they.
When worn with sickess, oft hast Thou
With health renew’d my face,
And when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Reviv’d my soul with grace.
Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss
Has made my cup run o’er,
And in a kind and faithful friend
Has doubled all my store.
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.
Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I’ll pursue
And after death in distant worlds
The glorious theme renew.
When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,
My ever-grateful heart, O Lord,
Thy mercy shall adore.
Through all eternity to Thee
A joyful song I’ll raise.
For, oh! eternity’s too short
To utter all thy praise.
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