God is love: His mercy brightens

God is love: His mercy brightens. John Bowring* (1792-1872). First published in Bowring’s Hymns (1825). The message, repeated in each stanza, that ‘God is wisdom, God is love’, expresses Bowring’s Unitarian belief simply and effectively. In the original printing, the first stanza was repeated at the end of the hymn, returning the singer to the starting point: God is love: His mercy brightens  All the path in which we rove;Bliss He wakes, and woe He lightens:  God is wisdom, God is love. The hymn was frequently found in hymnbooks from Psalms, Hymns, and Passages of Scripture for Christian Worship (the ‘Leeds Hymn Book’) of 1853 to the Revised Edition of Church Hymns (1903), edited by...