We praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love,
For Jesus who died and is now gone above.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory,
Hallelujah! Amen;
Hallelujah! Thine the glory,
Revive us again.
We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light,
Who has shown us our Savior and scattered our night.
All glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain,
Who has borne all our sins, and has cleansed every stain.
Revive us again; fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.
Public domain hymn text (published 1863). Words by William P. Mackay.
The Story Behind the Hymn
William Paton Mackay was a Scottish physician who trained formally in medicine and briefly practiced as a doctor before eventually feeling drawn away from medical practice and toward pastoral ministry instead, an unusual professional shift for the period, eventually becoming a Presbyterian minister serving in the English port city of Hull, where he went on to serve for many years while continuing to write hymns as a secondary occupation carried out alongside his primary pastoral responsibilities.
He wrote this hymn's text based directly on Psalm 85:6 — 'Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?' — a specific kind of prayer that presupposes a congregation, denomination, or entire nation has gradually grown spiritually cold, complacent, or indifferent over time and now specifically asks God to reignite a fervor and vitality that had genuinely once existed among them but had since visibly faded, a theme closely and deliberately tied to the broader religious revival movements that repeatedly swept across both Britain and America at intervals throughout the entire nineteenth century.
Mackay's own medical training gave him a somewhat distinctive vocabulary and framework for thinking about this theme of spiritual 'revival,' a word that in ordinary nineteenth-century usage could refer equally to restoring a patient from a dangerous physical decline or restoring a congregation from spiritual decline, and some hymnologists have noted that Mackay's writing shows particular comfort moving between these two overlapping senses of restoration to health and vitality.
The hymn's tune was composed separately by John Husband, and the two pieces were paired together for publication sometime afterward; the resulting combined hymn became a standard revival and camp-meeting song across both Britain and America, frequently used specifically to open services deliberately aimed at reawakening lapsed, backslidden, or simply lukewarm existing church members rather than at converting entirely new believers who had never previously professed any Christian faith — a distinct pastoral purpose that set it apart from many other gospel hymns of the era more narrowly focused on first-time conversion.
