Music & HymnsRise Up, O Men Of God

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." Matthew 6:19

Words: William Pierson Merrill, 1911; first published in the Presbyterian newspaper The Continent. Merrill wrote:

Nolan R. Best, then editor of The Continent, happened to say to me that there was urgent need of a brotherhood hymn…The suggestion lingered in my mind, and just about that time I came upon an article by Gerald Stanley Lee, entitled "The Church of the Strong Men." I was on one of the Lake Michigan steamers going back to Chicago for a Sunday at my own church, when suddenly this hymn came up, almost without conscious thought or effort.

Music: "Festal Song," William Henry Walter, 1894

Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
To serve the King of kings.

Rise up, O men of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.

Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!

Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where His feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up, O men of God!

Hymns supplied through the gracious generosity of the Cyber Hymnal Website