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Search me, O God! My actions try
- 2 Kings 5:20-27
- Job 23:10
- Psalms 139:1-2
- Psalms 139:23
- Psalms 44:21
- Psalms 79:8
- Proverbs 17:3
- Jeremiah 12:3
- Matthew 15:18-20
- Mark 7:20-23
- Luke 22:61
- Acts 1:24
- 2 Corinthians 5:19
- 2 Corinthians 9:15
- Hebrews 4:12-13
- 1 John 1:5-6
- 1 John 4:16
- 1 John 4:8
- Revelation 4:10
- 834
Search me, O God! my actions try
and let my life appear
as seen by your all-searching eye,
to mine my ways make clear.
2. Search all my mind and know my heart:
you only can make known
and let the deep, the hidden part
to me be fully shown.
3. Search, till your fiery glance has cast
its holy light through all,
and I by grace am brought at last
before your face to fall.
4. Thus humbled I shall come to see
what now I feebly prove,
that God alone in Christ can be
unutterable love!
Francis Bottome 1823-94
The Christian Life - Humbling and Restoration
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The story behind the hymn
Although his hymn was written and first published in America, some 20 years after its author Francis Bottome moved there from Derbyshire, it has been overtaken in popularity in the USA by the other Search me, O God, 829. In Britain however more main hymnals include this, the older hymn, which also begins at Psalm 139:23. In addition it has overtaken up to half a dozen of his other hymns which seemed more established 100 years ago. All of them come from a similar period, but the nearest we get to a date of writing is c1870. It is now published in 4, 5 or 6 stzs; omitted here are the middle two which seem better for self-examination than for congregational song. One begins ‘Throw light into the darkened cells/ where passion reigns within …’, and the other ends with ‘the chambers where polluted things/ hold empire o’er the soul’; vivid phrases that some other books either emend or (as here) omit. 2.1 was originally ‘Search all my sense’ and 4.1, ‘Thus prostrate …’
Gary Miles’ tune TAPESTRY (with an alternative ABNEY, 411) is preferred to a variety of others in current use. It was composed in 1974 and set to How sweet the name in ms for Hymns for Worship, a book completed in the 1980s which did not find a publisher.
A look at the author
Bottome, Francis (Frank)
b Belper, Derby 1823, d Gunnislake, Cornwall, nr Tavistock, Devon 1894. As a young man he sailed to America, remaining there for many years and being ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Ch. In 1872 he was made a Doctor of Sacred Theology (DST, or DD equivalent) by Dickinson Coll, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He wrote several hymns and songs, and among other projects helped to compile R P Smith’s collection Gospel Songs in 1872. His publications also included Centenary Singer (1869) and Round Lake (1872). 5 of his items feature in The Song Book of the Salvation Army (1986). No.834.