Alas! and did my Saviour bleed

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748). From Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), Book II, ‘Composed on Divine Subjects’, with the title ‘Godly Sorrow arising from the Sufferings of Christ’. It had six verses. The original verse 2 has usually been omitted: Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine, And bath’d in its own blood, While all expos’d to wrath divine The glorious Sufferer stood! Some 20th-century hymn books alter ‘worm’ in verse 1 line 4 to ‘one’ (CP, HfTC). HfTC also follows Salvation Army books in altering the original verse 4 line 3 from ‘God the mighty Maker’ to ‘Christ the mighty maker’. HfTC also avoids the double meaning of ‘give myself away’ in the...