Earthly Things Vain and Transitory

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How vain is all beneath the skies

Author: David E. Ford
Published in 163 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Hymn Harmonizations, Set 5

Representative Text

1 How vain is all beneath the skies!
How transient every earthly bliss!
How splender all the fondest ties
That bind us to a world like this!

2 The evening cloud, the morning dew,
The withering grass, the fading flower,
Of earthly hopes are emblems true
The glory of a passing hour.

3 But though earth's fairest blossoms die,
And all beneath the skies is vain,
There is a land whose confines lie
Beyond the reach of care and pain.

4 Then let the hope of joys to come
Dispel our cares, and chase our fears:
If God be ours, we're traveling home,
Though passing through a vale of tears.

Source: The Seventh-Day Adventist Hymn and Tune Book: for use in divine worship #926

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Author: David E. Ford

Ford, David Everard, son of a Congregational Minister at Long Melford, was born there on Sept. 13, 1797. He became pastor of the Congregational Church at Lymington, in Oct. 1821; Travelling Secretary to the Congregational Union in 1841; and pastor of Greengate Chapel, Salford, Manchester, in 1843. He died at Bedford, Oct. 23, 1875. Mr. Ford published several works including, Hymns chiefly on the Parables of Christ, 1828. From this is taken, (1) "Earthly joys no longer please us" (Heaven Anticipated). (2) "How vain is all beneath the skies" (Heaven Anticipated). These are in American common use. See Hymns of the Church, 1869, and Laudes Domini, 1884. Another of his hymns in common use from the same work, p. 107, is:—"Almighty Father, heave… Go to person page >

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First Line:	How vain is all beneath the skies
Title:	Earthly Things Vain and Transitory
Author:	David E. Ford
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain