My soul before Thee prostrate lies
My soul before Thee prostrate lies. Christian Friedrich Richter* (1676-1711), translated by John Wesley* (1703-1791).
Richter’s hymn began ‘Hier legt mein Sinn sich vor dir nieder’ (‘Sinn’ meaning mind or soul, not sin). Wesley would have found it in Das Gesang-Buch der Gemeine in Herrnhut (1735), the hymnbook of the Moravian missionaries who were on the ship to Georgia in 1735-36. It was one of the translations printed in his first hymnbook, the Collection of Psalms and Hymns, published in Charles-town in 1737. It was entitled ‘From the German’.
Richter’s hymn had 12 stanzas. Wesley omitted stanza 5, but the remainder of the hymn follows his customary pattern of the need for mercy (‘Lost...
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 15 Feb. 2025.<
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The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed February 15, 2025,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/m/my-soul-before-thee-prostrate-lies.