Thy aid, O mighty One, we crave!
Not shortened is thy arm to save.
Afar from thee we now sojourn
Return to us, O God, return!
This air, having a great resemblance to the tone and manner in which the old Cameronians said, or rather sung their prayers, and just no more music in it, as the singer will perceive, than what renders the recitation more slow and solemn, Nanny’s hymn affected the family group in no ordinary degree; it made the hairs of their head creep, and thrilled their simple hearts, easily impressed by divine things, while their looks strongly expressed their feelings. None of them would read or recite any thing farther, but entreated Nanny to say it over again, affirming, with one voice that “it was an extrodnar thing.”
“Ah! dear, dear bairns! I dinna ken about it,” said she; “he was a good cannie lad that made it, but he mixed wi’ the scoffers, and turned to hae his doubts and his failings like mony ane, (Lord forgie us a’ for our share in them;) he seems even to have doubted o’ the Omnipresence when he penned that, which was far far wrang. I’ll rather say ye ane on that subject that he had made when in a better way o’ thinking. It is said that the Englishes sing it in their chapels.”
She then attempted one in a bolder and more regular strain, but wanting the simplicity of the former, it failed in having the same effect. As it, however, closed the transactions of that momentous night at Riskinhope, we shall with it close this long chapter.
Dweller in heaven and ruler below!
Fain would I know thee, yet tremble to know!
How can a mortal deem, how may it be,
That being can not be, but present with thee?
Is it true that thou saw’st me ere I saw the morn?
Is it true that thou knew’st me before I was born?
That nature must live in the light of thine eye?
This knowledge for me is too great and too high!
That fly I to noon–day, or fly I to night,
To shroud me in darkness, or bathe me in light,
The light and the darkness to thee are the same,
And still in thy presence of wonder I am?
Should I with the dove to the desert repair;
Or dwell with the eagle in clough of the air;
In the desart afar, on the mountain’s wild brink,
From the eye of Omnipotence still must I shrink?
Or mount I on wings of the morning away
To caves of the ocean unseen by the day,
And hide in these uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there to be living and moving in thee?
Nay, scale I the cloud in the heavens to dwell;
Or make I my bed in the shadows of hell;
Can science expound, or humanity frame,
That still thou art present, and all are the same?
Yes, present for ever! Almighty—alone
Great Spirit of nature, unbounded, unknown!
What mind can embody thy presence divine?
I know not my own being! how can I thine?
Then humbly and low in the dust let me bend,
And adore what on earth I can ne’er comprehend;
The mountains may melt, and the elements flee,
Yet an universe still be rejoicing in thee!
END OF VOLUME FIRST.
Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.