Reverend Clay Evans Sermonic Hymn " FATHER, I STRETCH MY HANDS To THEE " 

Listen to what Reverend Evans Says at the End of this Hymn. Super Funny
Intro Hymn before his sermon. The Ship knows how they used to do before the word went forth
Father, I stretch my hands to Thee,
No other help I know;
If Thou withdraw Thyself from me,
Ah! whither shall I go?
What did Thine only Son endure,
Before I drew my breath!
What pain, what labor, to secure
My soul from endless death!
Surely Thou canst not let me die;
O speak, and I shall live;
And here I will unwearied lie,
Till Thou Thy Spirit give.
Author of faith! to Thee I lift
My weary, longing eyes:
O let me now receive that gift!
My soul without it dies.
Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee” is also a hymn by Charles Wesley, and while you will not find it in The United Methodist Hymnal, it is in another United Methodist songbook, Songs of Zion, #11 (Also #120 in Zion Still Sings). Ethnomusicologist Eileen Southern, who in 1971 published the seminal resource, The Music of Black Americans: A History, counted Songs of Zion as one of the “great monuments of Black church music.” In an article entitled “Hymnals of the Black Church,” she cites the inclusion of “Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee,” notated in a lined format, as a reflection of the importance of the validation of oral traditions in the Black Church. Technically, “Father” is in common meter.
Father, I stretch my hands to Thee, (8 syllables)
No other help I know; (6 syllables)
If Thou withdraw thyself from me, (8 syllables)
Ah, whither shall I go? (6 syllables)
However, because of the long, drawn-out manner in which it is sung, churches practicing this style of hymn singing referred to the lined-out style as “long meter” and/or “Old Dr. Watts.”
The example in Songs of Zion and Zion Still Sings gives a limited version of the melody that is used, an embellished version of the MARTYRDOM hymn tune (Hugh Wilson, 1766-1824), the same melody used for “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed” by Isaac Watts. MARTYRDOM is one tune that can be used for any common meter hymn. The hymnody of Isaac Watts and Charles and John Wesley had come to the colonies during the First Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement of the 1730s-40s. Watts had published hymnals in 1707 and in 1717. John Wesley’s hymnal of 70 hymns, published in Charlestown, South Carolina, in 1737, included 35 of Dr. Watts’s hymns. Despite the ban on education of any kind-including religious education-for black people, there were those who felt it important to teach black people the correct way to sing hymns. Educated black and white clergymen alike, were disparaging of the “extravagant and nonsensical” music that the slaves composed themselves. Little did they understand that the God-given creative impulse of African-derived people could not be squashed and that whatever they were given would be converted to fulfill their own spiritual and cultural needs!