O WHERE ARE KINGS AND EMPIRES NOW
"I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it." Matthew 16:18
Words: Arthur Cleveland Coxe, 1839. At the general conference of the
Evangelical Alliance in New York City in 1873, President Woolsey of Yale
quoted the first stanza of this hymn while speaking of the world's
skeptical attitude toward prayer. The applause was thunderous.
Music: "Tallis' Ordinal," Thomas Tallis, circa 1567.
O where are kings and empires now
Of old, that went and came?
But Lord, Thy Church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same.
We mark her goodly battlements
And her foundations strong;
We hear, within, the solemn voice
Of her unending song.
For not like kingdoms of the world
Thy holy Church, O God,
Though earthquake shocks are threat'ning her,
And tempests are abroad.
Unshaken as eternal hills,
Immovable she stands,
A mountain that shall fill the earth,
A house not made by hands.