70

A Welcome to Christian Friends

I

Kindred in Christ, for his dear sake,
A hearty welcome here receive;
May we together now partake
The joys which only he can give!

II

To you and us by grace ’tis given
To know the Saviour’s precious name,
And shortly we shall meet in heaven,
Our hope, our way, our end, the same.

III

May he, by whose kind care we meet,
Send his good Spirit from above,
Make our communications sweet,
And cause our hearts to burn with love!

IV

Forgotten be each worldly theme,
When Christians see each other thus:
We only wish to speak of Him
Who lived and died and reigns for us.

V

We’ll talk of all He did and said,
And suffer’d for us here below;
The path He mark’d for us to tread,
And what He’s doing for us now.

VI

Thus, as the moments pass away,
We’ll love and wonder and adore,
And hasten on the glorious day
When we shall meet to part no more.

Where this text comes from

First published in Olney Hymns (1779). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2] [3]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-15.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns, book-2.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L24.

Cite this poem

John Newton (1725–1807). “A Welcome to Christian Friends.” First published in Olney Hymns (1779). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-newton/a-welcome-to-christian-friends/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by John Newton