Tell me no more of earthly toys

Tell me no more of earthly toys. Susanna Harrison* (1752-1784).  From Harrison’s Songs in the Night (1780). This hymn was included in John Dobell*’s A New Selection of Seven Hundred Evangelical Hymns (1806), but it was never much used in Britain. The publication of Dobell’s book in the USA made it widely known. It was entitled ‘Renouncing the World’, and sometimes associated with 1 Timothy 6: 6 (‘godliness with contentment is great gain’) or 2 Corinthians 4: 18 (‘While we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal’). It had five stanzas:  Tell me no more of earthly...

If you have a valid subscription to Dictionary of Hymnology, please log in to view this content. If you require a subscription, please click here.

Cite this article