Frederick William Faber

Frederick William Faber Poems

Frederick William Faber Biography

Frederick William Faber (28 June 1814 — 26 September 1863), British hymn writer and theologian, was born at Calverley, Yorkshire, where his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was vicar. Faber attended the grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835, he obtained a scholarship at University College. In 1836, he won the Newdigate Prize for a poem on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from John Keble. Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne. In January 1837, he was elected fellow of National Scholars Foundation. Meanwhile, he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth, and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841, a travelling tutorship took him to the continent; on his return, he published a book called Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the poet Wordsworth. He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire, but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the methods of the Roman Catholic Church. After a prolonged mental struggle, he joined the Catholic Church in November 1845. He founded a religious community at Cotton Hall, also known as St Wilfrid's, in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, called Wilfridians (which ultimately merged in the Oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry Newman as Superior). In 1849, a branch of the oratory—subsequently independent—was established in London, first in King William Street, and afterwards at Brompton (Brompton Oratory), over which Faber presided until his death. In spite of his weak health, an almost incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a number of theological works, and edited the Oratorian Lives of the Saints.)

The Best Poem Of Frederick William Faber

The Will Of God

I worship thee, sweet will of God!
And all thy ways adore;
And every day I live, I seem
To love thee more and more.

Thou wert the end, the blessed rule
Of our Saviour's toils and tears;
Thou wert the passion of his heart
Those three and thirty years.

And he hath breathed into my soul
A special love of thee,
A love to lose my will in his,
And by that loss be free.

I love to see thee bring to naught
The plans of wily men;
When simple hearts outwit the wise,
Oh, thou art loveliest then.

The headstrong world it presses hard
Upon the church full oft,
And then how easily thou turn'st
The hard ways into soft.

I love to kiss each print where thou
Hast set thine unseen feet;
I cannot fear thee, blessed will!
Thine empire is so sweet.

When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to thee.

I know not what it is to doubt,
My heart is ever gay;
I run no risk, for, come what will,
Thou always hast thy way.

I have no cares, O blessed will!
For all my cares are thine:
I live in triumph, Lord! for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.

And when it seems no chance or change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And gayly waits on thee.

Man's weakness, waiting upon God,
Its end can never miss,
For men on earth no work can do
More angel-like than this.

Ride on, ride on, triumphantly,
Thou glorious will, ride on!
Faith's pilgrim sons behind thee take
The road that thou hast gone.

He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost;
God's will is sweetest to him, when
It triumphs at his cost.

Ill that he blesses is our good,
And unblessed good is ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong.
If it be his sweet will.

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