522. A Charge to Keep
Under the title 'Carolina,' Jackson DESO 158 reprints a hymn of four stanzas, of which the first corresponds to the following, and says that the hymn appears in Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist, compiled by William Walker, of Spartanburg, S. C, and printed in Philadelphia in 1846. "The text is by Charles Wesley." Under the title 'Kentucky,' the hymn appears in Songs of Zion. A Manual of the Best and Most Popular Hymns and Tunes, for Social and Private Devotion (New York, 1851 ), p. 110.
Contributed by George D. Harmon, Union Mills, Rutherford county, as from "Uncle Frank"; without date (Mr. Harmon attended the Trinity College Summer School in 1921 and 1922).
A Charge to keep I have,
A God to glo-ri-fy,
A never ly-ing* soul to save
And fit it for the sky.
[* A scribal error for "dying."]