1 Dark brood the heavens over thee,
Black clouds of gloom are gathering fast,
In awful power thy God has come,
Thy days of sin and mirth are past.
2 Dark brood the heavens over thee,
Red flames of death are bursting round;
Bright lightnings flash, loud thunders roar,
How shakes the heaving, broken ground!
3 Dark brood the heavens over thee,
Behold, the Judge of all appears;
Unnumbered millions throng around,
Raised from the buried dust of years.
4 Dark brood the heavens over thee;
Sinner, behold thy dreadful doom!
Destruction opens wide for thee
Thy blindly chosen, final home.
2 Yet stay, the vision lingers yet;
Why, sinner, O, why wilt thou die?
Dark brood the heavens, but mercy waits;
This hour to Christ, thy Saviour, fly.
Source: The Seventh-Day Adventist Hymn and Tune Book: for use in divine worship #876
Smith, Samuel Francis, D.D., was born in Boston, U.S.A., Oct. 21, 1808, and graduated in arts at Harvard, and in theology at Andover. He entered the Baptist ministry in 1832, and became the same year editor of the Baptist Missionary Magazine. He also contributed to the Encyclopaedia Americana. From 1834 to 1842 he was pastor at Waterville, Maine, and Professor of Modern Languages in Waterville College. In 1842 he removed to Newton, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1854, when he became the editor of the publications of the Baptist Missionary Union. With Baron Stow he prepared the Baptist collection known as The Psalmist, published in 1843, to which he contributed several hymns. The Psalmist is the most creditable and influential of… Go to person page >
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