Once in Royal David’s City- 165

Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed,

where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed:

Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child.

Christ came down to earth from heaven, love incarnate for us all,

and his shelter was a stable, and his cradle was a stall;

with the poor, the scorned, the lowly, lived on earth our Savior holy.

Jesus is our childhood’s pattern;’ day by day like us he grew,

he was little, weak, and helpless, ears and smiles like us he knew.

Thus he feels for all our sadness, and he shares in all our gladness.

And out eyes at last shall see him, through his own redeeming love;

for that child who seemed so helpless lives and reigns in heaven above;

and he leads his children on to the place where he is gone.