First published in Isaac Watts's groundbreaking collection Divine Songs for Children in 1715, this hymn comprises six stanzas of four lines and was originally assigned the descriptive title "Against swearing and cursing, and taking God's name in vain." Designed as a moral and spiritual lesson for youth, the text contrasts the reverent adoration rendered by heavenly angels with the irreverent language often heard on earth, offering a stern warning against profanity and the improper use of the divine name. While Watts's Divine Songs enjoyed immense popularity throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a standard textbook for moral education, the modern congregational and pedagogical use of this particular hymn has become quite limited. It nevertheless retained a place in select nineteenth-century Sunday school hymnals, such as the Methodist Free Churches Sunday School Hymn Book (Number 228), where it appeared in a slightly revised and modernized form to suit contemporary instructional needs.
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Hymns in the library connected to this dictionary topic.
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