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A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, NOT ONE

Scripture Verse

Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10

Introduction

portrait
James Montgomery
(1771–1854)
National Portrait Gallery

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Words: James Mont­go­me­ry, Orig­in­al Hymns (Lon­don: Long­man, Brown, Green & Long­mans, 1853), num­ber 216, alt. Past, Pre­sent, Fu­ture.

Music: Cri­mond Jes­sie S. Ir­vine, in The North­ern Psal­ter, 1872. Har­mo­ny by Da­vid Grant (🔊 ).

Alternate Tunes:

portrait
Jessie S. Irvine
(1836–1887)

Lyrics

A hun­dred years ago, not one
Of us had sprung to birth;
A hun­dred years to come, and none
Can hope to walk this earth.

We are, we were not! here our mind
Looks round with hopes and fears;
This point is Time; be­fore, be­hind,
Eternity ap­pears.

’Tis yet, through grace, with­in our pow­er,
To choose what we would be;
On the de­ci­sion of an hour,
Depends eter­ni­ty.

This hour! this mo­ment, let us take
The nar­row up­ward path;
This hour, this mo­ment, all for­sake
The broad road down to wrath.

O Lord, our shep­herd! lest like sheep,
Thy child­ren go astray,
Feed us with know­ledge, guide and keep
Our souls in Thy right way.

So, when a hun­dred years are fled,
Remembering this day’s choice,
On earth, though num­bered with the dead,
In Heav­en, may we re­joice.