The Floating Church of the Redeemer, for Sailors and Boatmen built at Bordentown, New Jersey; and to be moored at a wharf in Philadelphia. The seats are all to be free. [Now St. John's Church, Camden, N.J.]

The Jersey woods are tall and green,
The Jersey mines are broad and deep,
And cool and pure, the sparkling streams,
That, down the Jersey mountains, leap.

Search out, from all the Jersey woods,
The sturdiest oaks, the loftiest pines
And gather in the choicest ore,
That deepest lies, in Jersey mines.

And, where the Jersey mountain streams
Fill the deep rolling Delaware,
Lay, broad and strong, the Christian keel,
And fasten every plank, with prayer.

Complete, the sacred structure stands,
And towers, majestic, from the wave:
A floating Church, a Christian ark;
The sailor's soul, from sin, to save.

Float gently down, thou blessed bark,
To Philadelphia's ship-lined shore;
And moored 'long side her teeming wharves,
Unfold the Gospel's sacred store.

Show, from the topmast's tallest peak,
The great Redeemer's glorious name
Display the blessed, bleeding Cross;
Its love, its agony, its shame.

Proclaim the life-restoring Word;
Pour all the energy of prayer;
Sprinkle the blest baptismal wave;
The Bread, the Wine, of life, prepare.

Arrest the thoughtless, cheek the rash,
Win home the wanderer, from his ways;
The broken-hearted, bind with balm,
And fill the penitent with praise.

Like clouds that scud before the storm,
Like doves that to their windows come;
Crowd, brothers, to the floating Cross,
And find the Church, the Sailor's Home.

Project Canterbury