The past few weeks the singers in the Park Avenue Youth Chorale have been working on a fantastic setting of There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy by the late Calvin Hampton.  If you are looking for a well-written, singable piece for young voices that both challenges and inspires, I highly recommend it.  It’s also an easy read for adult choirs.

The text Hampton uses is a combination of various couplets from a larger poem, Souls of Men, Why Will Ye Scatter, by Frederick William Faber.  The text is a bit dated in some respects, but there is a freshness to many of the lines, which don’t sound as if they were penned in 1862.  It has been a joy to share this piece with the choir and I only hope that these powerful words shape their understanding of God’s love and grace in their lives.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth’s failings
have such kindly judgment given.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man’s mind.
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word:
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our Lord.

Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?
There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior;
There is healing in His blood.