Words: , 1869.

Music: , ar­ranged by .

Miss Taylor writes me: “The idea for the hymn came in­to my mind through read­ing of the ex­press­ion, ‘Oh, to be no­thing,’ in a vol­ume of an old mag­a­zine. I think it oc­curred in an­ec­dote about an ag­ed Christ­ian work­er. At all events the words haunt­ed me; I mused on their mean­ing, and the hymn was the out­come.”

Some one mis­in­ter­pret­ed the true mean­ing of the hymn, and has writ­ten ano­ther one en­ti­tled, “Oh, to be some­thing.” But it is not in ac­cord­ance with the Mas­ter, who made him­self no­thing; nor is it in the spir­it of the text which says that he that abas­eth him­self shall in due time be ex­alt­ed.

This hymn was much used as a so­lo in our meet­ings in Great Bri­tain.

Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel,
For the Master’s use made meet.
Emptied that He might fill me
As forth to His service I go;
Broken, that so unhindered,
His life through me might show.

Refrain

Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel,
For the Master’s use made meet.

Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only as led by His hand;
A messenger at His gateway,
Only waiting for His command;
Only an instrument ready
His praises to sound at His will,
Willing should He not require me,
In silence to wait on Him still.

Refrain

Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Painful the humbling may be,
Yet low in the dust I’d lay me
That the world might my Savior see.
Rather be nothing, nothing,
To Him let our voices be raised,
He is the Fountain of blessing,
He only is meet to be praised.

Refrain