“SHRINKING FROM THE COLD HAND OF DEATH.”
This is a hymn of contrast, the dark of recoiling nature making the background of the rainbow. Written by Charles Wesley, it has passed among his forgotten or mostly forgotten productions but is notable for the frequent use of its 3rd stanza by his brother John. John Wesley, in his old age, did not so much shrink from death as from the thought of its too slow approach. His almost constant prayer was, “Lord, let me not live to be useless.” 585 / 521 “At every place,” says Belcher, “after giving to his societies what he desired them to consider his last advice, he invariably concluded with the stanza beginning—
“‘Oh that, without a lingering groan,
I may the welcome word receive.
My body with my charge lay down,
And cease at once to work and live.’”
The anticipation of death itself by both the great evangelists ended like the ending of the hymn—
No anxious doubt, no guilty gloom
Shall daunt whom Jesus' presence cheers;
My Light, my Life, my God is come,
And glory in His face appears.