The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of the N.Y. Christian Advocate, and Sunday School Advocate, for several years, and was a musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.
“SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING.”
The Hon. and Rev. [Walter Shirley], Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway, Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the 160 / 128 disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.
Sweet the moments, rich in blessing
Which before the Cross I spend;
Life and health and peace possessing
From the sinner's dying Friend.
All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise. At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.
Truly blesséd is the station
Low before His cross to lie,