O Christ, in you my soul has found

Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Psalms 27:4
  • Psalms 73:26
  • Micah 5:5
  • Mark 8:22-25
  • John 14:27
  • John 15:11
  • John 9:6-11
  • Acts 4:12
  • Romans 5:1
  • Ephesians 2:14
  • 1 Peter 4:2-4
Book Number:
  • 782

O Christ, in you my soul has found
and found in you alone,
the peace that I had sought so long,
the joy till now unknown.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,
no other name so true;
there’s love and life and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in you.

2. I longed for rest and happiness
but Christ I could not see;
then, Saviour, while I passed you by,
your love laid hold on me.

3. I used to grieve for pleasures lost
but never wept for you;
you touched my eyes-and grace revealed
your beauty to my view.

© In this version Praise Trust
Anon.

The Christian Life - Assurance and Hope

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Tunes

  • Satisfaction
    Satisfaction
    Metre:
    • CMD (Common Metre Double: 86 86 D)
    Composer:
    • McGranahan, James
  • Jackson
    Jackson
    Metre:
    • CM (Common Metre: 86 86)
    Composer:
    • Jackson, Thomas

The story behind the hymn

Ira D Sankey has again presented us with a hymn—in the mood of 779 which Sacred Songs and Solos (1881) also featured—and a problem. For this further gospel-song affirmation of Christ’s uniqueness appears there under ‘B.E., arr.’ with no other note of its author. Romans 5:12 also introduces it in that collection, but although it was a favourite with such as the Scots James Gilmour and Henry Drummond, it remains anonymous. It is clearly a song of personal testimony. Stz 1 then read ‘… the peace, the joy I sought so long,/ the bliss till now unknown.’ 2.2 was ‘I yearned for them, not thee’, and lines 3–4 retain the direct address to the Lord rather than reverting to the 3rd person. Stz 3 was ‘The pleasures lost I sadly mourned/ but never wept for thee/ till grace the sightless eyes received,/ thy loveliness to see’. It is perhaps a pity that the rhyming word ‘thee’ is so integral to the hymn that revision has to be more thorough than might be wished; however, the meaning has been kept as close as possible to the original, and (it is hoped) made more usable for a new century. In particular, the original 3rd stz which had become a notorious joke (‘I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,/ but ah! the waters failed …’) has had to go. Not even the rather differentlyexpressed Jeremiah 2:13, it was felt, could justify retaining this as a serious line or stz.

Unlike some in this idiom, the hymn has not found a new musical partner to replace James McGranahan’s tune SATISFACTION (=NONE BUT CHRIST), to which the words have almost invariably been set. At least in Britain, this has become the best-known of his many tunes, but even in the USA the composition has struggled to maintain its place. But a CM alternative, making the hymn one of six 4-line stzs, is JACKSON, 792; SERAPH (33) has also been suggested.