O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

George Matheson was born in Glasgow on 27th March 1842, the eldest of eight children. He excelled at school and graduated with first class honours from Glasgow University, when he was only 19 years old. He went on to be a minister and author.

Whilst at University he fell in love with a girl, a fellow student, and they were planning to get married. He was also rapidly going blind. When he told her of his impending blindness she replied, ‘I do not want to be the wife of a blind man’.

In his blindness he was cared for by his sister. On the evening of his sister’s wedding, feeling the pain of being alone, he wrote a famous hymn.

Oh love that wilt not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be

Oh light that followest all my way
I yield my flickering torch to thee
My heart restores its borrowed ray
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be

Matheson says: ‘My hymn was composed… on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family were staying overnight in Glasgow. Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering.

The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction.’

Oh joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I trace the rainbow through the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be

Oh cross that liftest up my head
I dare not ask to fly from thee
I lay in dust’s life’s glory dead
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be

This is a hymn that has spoken to me over the years. It contains no direct mention of God or Jesus; it speaks of a profound transformation that Matheson experienced, that I can experience.

It seeks to describe the mystery of the indescribable, the persistent love that flows into my ‘weary soul’, the blazing light that restores brightness to my ‘flickering torch’, the joy that reaches into my pain, and promises a tearless tomorrow; the cross that speaks of death, but leaves to new life.

I muse again on this love, light, joy and cross; I still don’t fully understand, but I’m changed.