Help in the Time of Need

I

Unless the Lord had been my stay,
(With trembling joy my soul may say,)
My cruel foe had gain’d his end:
But he appear’d for my relief,
And Satan sees, with shame and grief,
That I have an almighty Friend.

II

Oh! ’twas a dark and trying hour,
When harass’d by the tempter’s power,
I felt my strongest hopes decline!
You only who have known his arts,
You only who have felt his darts,
Can pity such a case as mine.

III

Loud in my ears a charge he read,
(My conscience witness’d all he said,)
My long black list of outward sin:
Then bringing forth my heart to view,
Too well what’s hidden there he knew,
He show’d me ten times worse within.

IV

’Tis all too true, my soul replied,
But I remember Jesus died,
And now he fills a throne of grace;
I’ll go, as I have done before,
His mercy I may still implore;
I have his promise⁠—“Seek my face.”

V

But as when sudden fogs arise
The trees and hills, the sun and skies,
Are all at once conceal’d from view;
So clouds of horror, black as night,
By Satan raised, hid from my sight
The throne of grace and promise too.

VI

Then, while beset with guilt and fear.
He tried to urge me to despair,
He tried and he almost prevail’d:
But Jesus by a heavenly ray
Drove clouds and guilt and fear away,
And all the tempter’s malice fail’d.