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A Cameronian’s Midnight Hymn.[*]
She laid her hands across each other on her breast, turned in the balls of her half–closed eyes so that nothing was seen but the white, and, with her face raised upwards, and a slow rocking motion, she sung the following hymn, to a strain the most solemn that ever was heard. A scrap of this ancient melody is still preserved, and here subjoined, for without its effect the words are nothing.
O thou, who dwell’st in the heavens high,
Above yon stars, and within yon sky,
Where the dazzling fields never needed light
Of the sun by day, nor the moon by night!
Though shining millions around thee stand,
For the sake of one that’s at thy right hand,
O think of them that have cost him dear,
Still chained in doubt and in darkness here!
Our night is dreary, and dim our day;
And if thou turn’st thy face away,
We are sinful, feeble, and helpless dust,
And have none to look to, and none to trust.
The powers of darkness are all abroad,
They own no Saviour, and fear no God;
And we are trembling in dumb dismay,
O turn not thus thy face away!
Our morning dawn is with clouds o’erspread,
And our evening fall is a bloody red;
And the groans are heard on the mountain swarth;
There is blood in heaven, and blood on earth.
A life of scorn for us thou did’st lead,
And in the grave laid thy blessed head;
Then think of those who undauntedly
Have laid down life and all for thee.
Thou wilt not turn them forth in wrath,
To walk this world of sin and death,
In shadowy dim deformity?
O God it may not—cannot be!