That washes white as snow.’

She knows tonight, my mother knows,

Up there, her prayers are heard;

For Jesus gives the wanderer rest,

I’m ‘trusting in His Word.’”

Dr. W. J. Dawson, in his reminiscences entitled The Autobiography of a Mind,[8] thus refers to

The Note of Assurance in the Old Hymns

“I came the other day upon a Methodist hymnal bearing the date of 1877, and in it I found the hymns which my mother loved to quote, and I was struck with their depth of emotion, their genuine spiritual quality. They have a note of profound assurance which I miss in the modern hymns.

‘Leader of faithful souls, and guide

Of all who travel to the sky,