"The Wounds of Christ are Open"

by Evangeline Booth (Booth's notes follow on how the song came to be written)
1.
Dark shadows were falling.
My spirit appalling,
For hid in my heart sin's deep crimson stains lay;
And when I was weeping,
The past o'er me creeping,
I heard of the blood which can wash sin away.

Chorus

The wounds of Christ are open,
Sinner, they were made for thee;
The wounds of Christ are open,
There for refuge flee.

2.
It soothes all life's sorrows,
It smooths all its furrows,
It binds up the wounds which transgression has made;
It turns night to morning,
So truly adorning
The spirit with joy when all other lights fade.

3.
Come, cast in thy sorrow,
Wait not till tomorrow.
Life's evening is closing, the death-bell will toll;
His blood for thee streaming,
His grace so redeeming,
His love intervening will pardon thy soul.

How the song Came to be written by Evangeline Booth

"Returning to my quarters late one November evening," wrote Evangeline Booth, "after battling with cold, sleet and misery, dressed in rags that I might get nearer to the hearts and lives of the poorest of those with whom I mingled in the slums of London, I vainly struggled to banish from my mind and pitying heart the awful scenes I had looked upon. Men, women and children with broken lives, broken hearts and broken characters; hopeless and helpless, trapped like wild animals at bay.

"One picture I could not banish. The beautiful face and golden head of the little fifteen-year-old mother, appearing in the filthy, dark, boxlike room as a jewel amid ruins; the fast and bitter tears falling on the human mite dead in her arms; the despair in the frightened blue eyes as she said, 'Look, there is no place for the baby or for me in life or in death. Where can I hide the baby? Where can I hide myself?'

"At one o'clock the following morning I wrote this song" -- the answer to the heart-cry of the child-mother:

Evangeline Booth