‘Open are the gifts of God,

gifts of love to mind and sense;

hidden is love’s agony,

love’s endeavour, love’s expense.

Love that gives, gives evermore,

gives with zeal, with eager hands,

spares not, keeps not, all outpours,

ventures all, its all expends.

Drained is love in making full,

bound in setting others free,

poor in keeping many rich,

weak in giving power to be.

Therefore he who shows us God

helpless hangs upon the tree;

and the nails and crown of thorns

tell of what God’s love must be.

Here is God, no monarch he,

throned in easy state to reign;

here is God, whose arms of love

aching, spent, the world sustain.’

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