Samuel Rutherford

End of section 81

The Sands of Time Are Sinking by Anne Ross Cousin because of his deep piety and the triumphant spirit with which he bore his many persecutions samuel rutherford sixteen hundred to sixteen sixty one is remembered as one of the christian martyrs of scotland dean stanley called him the true saint of the covenant based upon his words and especially those uttered upon his deathbed this hymn was written by the wife of a presbyterian minister after an appreciative study of rutherford's life rutherford was a learned professor of theology and a minister of the gospel beginning his pastoral work at anworth in sixteen twenty seven ten years later he wrote to john gordon my worthy and dear brother misspend not your short sand-glass which runneth very fast seek your lord in time these words form the theme of the opening lines of the hymn he was so steadfast in beliefs that conflicted with the orthodoxy of his time that in sixteen thirty six he was brought before the high commission court removed from his church and banished to aberdeen later his books were burned under his windows at st andrews and finally after the restoration he was summoned for high treason before parliament but the approach of death intervened and he wrote in reply i am summoned before a higher judge and judicatory and ere a few days arrive i shall be where few kings and great folks come in reply to the question what think ye now of christ his dying words were i shall live and adore him glory glory to my creator and redeemer for ever glory shineth on emmanuel's land these and others of his utterances mrs cousin wove into a poem of nineteen stanzas from which this hymn and also that beginning o christ he is the fountain were taken and of section eighty two

section number eighty three one hundred and one hymn stories by carl f price this libervox recording is in the public domain art thou weary art thou languid st stephen the sabbaite translated by john mason neale a greek hymn of the eighth century the original lines of this poem by st stephen the sabbite so appealed to the great translator dr neale that he wrote of them that they strike me as being very sweet he made so free a translation from the greek however that the english version almost deserves to be classed as an original hymn stephen's uncle st john of damascus placed him in the monastery at mar saba in the wilderness of judea near the dead sea when the latter was only ten years old eventually he became a monk of sabas and remained there for fifty-nine years until his death at an early age he came under the influence of cosmos who guided and perfected his literary style so that he became a poet and thus learned to give noble expression to his devout meditations the most beautiful of his poems is this hymn which has endured for nearly eleven centuries The monastery also still stands, clinging to the face of a steep precipice, so that it is difficult to distinguish man's masonry from the natural rock.

It is visited by travelers in the Holy Land, and the Reverend James King, in his Anglican Hymnology, 1885, gives an interesting account of it.

In a year that would be a fair-sized volume, and the writing of it might make us humbler and more trustful, and so better Christian men and women.

How well did Samuel Rutherford remind one of his depressed correspondents that our apprehensions are not canonical, are not, that is to say, inspired by God.

We make them ourselves.

What he would have us believe is that all things work together for good to them that love God.

End of section 81

The Sands of Time Are Sinking by Anne Ross Cousin because of his deep piety and the triumphant spirit with which he bore his many persecutions samuel rutherford sixteen hundred to sixteen sixty one is remembered as one of the christian martyrs of scotland dean stanley called him the true saint of the covenant based upon his words and especially those uttered upon his deathbed this hymn was written by the wife of a presbyterian minister after an appreciative study of rutherford's life rutherford was a learned professor of theology and a minister of the gospel beginning his pastoral work at anworth in sixteen twenty seven ten years later he wrote to john gordon my worthy and dear brother misspend not your short sand-glass which runneth very fast seek your lord in time these words form the theme of the opening lines of the hymn he was so steadfast in beliefs that conflicted with the orthodoxy of his time that in sixteen thirty six he was brought before the high commission court removed from his church and banished to aberdeen later his books were burned under his windows at st andrews and finally after the restoration he was summoned for high treason before parliament but the approach of death intervened and he wrote in reply i am summoned before a higher judge and judicatory and ere a few days arrive i shall be where few kings and great folks come in reply to the question what think ye now of christ his dying words were i shall live and adore him glory glory to my creator and redeemer for ever glory shineth on emmanuel's land these and others of his utterances mrs cousin wove into a poem of nineteen stanzas from which this hymn and also that beginning o christ he is the fountain were taken and of section eighty two

section number eighty three one hundred and one hymn stories by carl f price this libervox recording is in the public domain art thou weary art thou languid st stephen the sabbaite translated by john mason neale a greek hymn of the eighth century the original lines of this poem by st stephen the sabbite so appealed to the great translator dr neale that he wrote of them that they strike me as being very sweet he made so free a translation from the greek however that the english version almost deserves to be classed as an original hymn stephen's uncle st john of damascus placed him in the monastery at mar saba in the wilderness of judea near the dead sea when the latter was only ten years old eventually he became a monk of sabas and remained there for fifty-nine years until his death at an early age he came under the influence of cosmos who guided and perfected his literary style so that he became a poet and thus learned to give noble expression to his devout meditations the most beautiful of his poems is this hymn which has endured for nearly eleven centuries The monastery also still stands, clinging to the face of a steep precipice, so that it is difficult to distinguish man's masonry from the natural rock.

It is visited by travelers in the Holy Land, and the Reverend James King, in his Anglican Hymnology, 1885, gives an interesting account of it.