Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea

A great High Priest who's name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

No tongue can bid me thence depart

When satan tempts me to dispair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see him there

Who made an end of all my sin

Because a sinless savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God the judge is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there the Risen Lamb

My perfect spotless righteousness

The great unchangable I Am

The King Of Glory and of grace

One in Himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God

With Christ my Savior and my God

These lyrics were written by Charitie Lees Bancroft who was a hymn writer in the late 19th century.

(Charitie was born on 21 June 1841, at Bloomfield, County Dublin, the fourth child of Rev George Sidney and Charlotte Lees. The Rev George Smith was the minister of Colebrooke church, in the Church of Ireland parish of Aghalurcher from 1838-1867 and during this period the family including Charitie lived in Ardunshin House near Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, Ireland. In 1860 one of Charitie's first compositions O for the robes of whiteness appeared in leaflet form in the immediate aftermath of the Irish 1859 revival. In 1863 she wrote perhaps her best known hymn "Before the Throne of God Above" which she entitled The Advocate (a hymn which was revived in evangelical circles in the late Twentieth Century). In 1867 Charitie's father took the family to Tattyreagh, Omagh, County Tyrone, when he became the rector of St Columba's Church Charitie continued with her compositions eventually publishing them in a volume entitled Within the Veil in 1867.

In 1869 a Liverpudlian Arthur Bancroft married Charitie in Edinburgh, Scotland. Records of her married life are scarce but it seems she was widowed twice. She died on 20 June 1923, in Oakland, California, USA aged 82 bearing the name de Cheney.)