Do All the Good You Can (The world is my parish) (website only)
Chorus
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all ways, in all places, at all times, to all people you can,
As long as ever you can.
Verse 1
What one generation tolerates,
The next generation will embrace.
Give me a tender heart resigned,
Pure and full of faith and love.
Be thou my strength, my light, my way,
And bid my soul the call obey.
To love is all my wish,
I only live for this.
Chorus
Verse 2
"Ah! give me Lord" I still would say,
"A heart to mourn, a heart to pray".
My business this, my only care,
My life, my ev'ry breath be prayer.
Lord I am blind, be thou my sight,
Lord I am weak, be thou my might,
A helper of the helpless be,
And let me find my all in thee!
Chorus
Words adapted from sayings attributed to John Wesley
Music: © 2023 Richard Mainwaring richardmainwaring.com
More information
Richard Mainwaring’s hymn Do all the good you can (‘The world is my parish’) was well received at the 2023 Conference of the Methodist Church in Britain. The hymn draws on words attributed to John Wesley and was written for the Transforming Lives Methodist Education International Conference in May that year, which coincided with the 275th anniversary of John Wesley’s model school, Kingswood School, in 1748.
Richard is a versatile and well-travelled musician, working in TV both as a composer and presenter, and on radio. He is author of Everybody Hertz: the amazing world of frequency, from bad vibes to good vibrations. Richard is also an experienced music educator, having taught in UK state and independent schools as a Director of Music.