{
 "id": "john-newton/travailing-in-birth-for-souls",
 "title": "Travailing in Birth for Souls",
 "ordinal": "26",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 167,
 "container": "After Sermons to Young People on New-Year’s Evenings, Suited to the Subjects",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 6,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
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   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "What contradictions meet",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In ministers’ employ!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a bitter sweet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A sorrow full of joy:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No other post affords a place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For equal honour or disgrace!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who can describe the pain",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which faithful preachers feel,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Constrain’d to speak in vain",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To hearts as hard as steel?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or who can tell the pleasures felt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When stubborn hearts begin to melt!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Saviour’s dying love,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul’s amazing worth,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Their utmost efforts move,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And draw their bowels forth:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They pray and strive, their rest departs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Christ be form’d in sinners’ hearts.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If some small hope appear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They still are not content;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But, with a jealous fear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They watch for the event:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Too oft they find their hopes deceived,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then how their inmost souls are grieved!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when their pains succeed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the tender blade",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The ripening ears proceed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Their toils are overpaid:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No harvest joy can equal theirs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find the fruit of all their cares.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On what has now been sown,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The power is thine alone,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To make it spring and grow:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do thou the gracious harvest raise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou alone shalt have the praise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}