“HASTEN SINNER, TO BE WISE”
Is one of the few unforgotten hymns of Thomas Scott, every second line repeating the solemn caution,—
Stay not for tomorrow's sun,
—and every line enforcing its exhortation with a new word, “To be wise,” “to implore,” “to return,” and “to be blest” were natural cumulatives that summoned and wooed the sinner careless and astray. It is a finished piece of work, but it owes its longevity less to its structural form than to its spirit. For generations it has been sung to “Pleyel's Hymn.”
The Rev. Thomas Scott (not Rev. Thomas Scott the Commentator) was born in Norwich, Eng., in 1705, and died at Hupton, in Norfolk, 1776. He was a Dissenting minister, pastor for twenty-one years—until disabled by feeble health—at Lowestoft in Suffolk. He was the author of—
Angels roll the rock away.