Daily Reading for February 13 • Absalom Jones, Priest, 1818

Ye Ministers, that are call'd to preaching,
Teachers, and exhorters too;
Awake! behold your harvest wasting!
Arise! there is no rest for you.
To think upon that strict commandment,
That God has on his teachers laid,
The sinner's blood, who dies unwarned,
Shalt fall upon their Shepherd's head.

But oh! dear brethren, let's be doing,
Behold the nation's in distress,
The Lord of Hosts forbid their ruin,
Before the day of grace is past.

We read of wars and great commotions,
Before the great and dreadful day,
Oh, Sinners! turn your sinful courses
And trifle not your time away.

But Oh! dear sinners, that's not all that's dreadful!
You must before your God appear!
To give an account of your transactions,
And how you spent your time, when here.

From a manuscript note inside the back cover to A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793: And a Refutation of some Censures, Thrown upon Them in Some Late Publications by Absalom Jones (1746-1818) and Allen Richard (1760-1831); http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=history.chapter.Jones