We Want to See the Temple
By George Manwaring
We want to see the temple
With towers rising high –
Its spires majestic pointing
Unto the clear blue sky –
A house where Saints may gather,
And richest blessings gain.
We want to meet the Savior,
And see Him face to face,
When he shall come in glory
Unto that holy place.
A house where Saints may gather,
And richest blessings gain –
Where Jesus, our Redeemer,
A dwelling may obtain.
If we are true and faithful,
We’ll hear our Savior’s voice –
Receive a Father’s blessing,
And in His love rejoice.
A house where Saints may gather,
And richest blessings gain –
Where Jesus, our Redeemer,
A dwelling may obtain.
(1881)
Wow, this rang some memory bells in my head! I had to get up and go for my hymnal collection, and I discovered that two verses of this were in the 1951 SING WITH ME, which was the Primary songbook when I was in Primary. I went over to singpraises.net, and they show it has having been included in the 1880 Primary Children’s Songbook. It looks like it was about 1888 that the church stopped using the third verse, which is a shame because it gives the promise of blessings.
Good memory, Bruce! Thank you. I agree about the third verse — and I don’t see any faulty doctrine or other reason for dropping it.
Other than the very last line, the meter and rhyme structure of this poem almost matches the Primary song that replaced it, Janice Kapp Perry’s “I Love to See the Temple.”
Other Clark — Yes, the metering is pretty much the same. It leaves me wondering if there was some inspiration gained from this text. This text was written when there was only the St. George temple in operation and the other three “old Utah temples” still under construction; hence “We want to see”; a hope to see. We lost this hymn when the 1951 ‘Sing With Me’ was replaced with the 1969 orange-cover ‘Sing With Me’, and Sister Perry’s hymn was written in 1980 and appeared in a ‘Supplement to Sing With Me’ in 1982. So I’m not sure if it is ‘officially’ a replacement, but it essentially is. Since there are now so many temples, it’s fitting that it says “I Love to see” as opposed to “we hope to see”. Sister Perry’s explanation is that when they made youth temple trips to Idaho Falls, she was always anticipative of the freeway curving and the lit-up temple coming into view, which is brought out in the third verse she wrote for the Tabernacle Choir, about seeing the temple “shine brightly through the night”.
lindberg supplies a scan of the 1951 Primary songbook with the music this hymn was set to. Thanks, lindberg!