One song of praise, one voice of prayer,
Around, above, below;
Ye winds and waves the burthen bear,
"An hundred years ago!"
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"An hundred years ago!" What then?
There rose, the world to bless,
A little band of faithful men,
A cloud of witnesses:
It looked but like a human hand;
Few welcomed, and none fear'd,
Yet, as it open'd o'er the land,
The hand of God appear'd.
The Lord made bare His holy arm,
In sight of earth and hell;
Fiends fled before it with alarm,
And alien-armies fell.
God gave the word, and great hath been
The preachers' company;
What wonders have our fathers seen!
What signs their children see!
One song of praise for mercies past,
Through all our courts resound;
One voice of prayer, that to the last,
Grace may yet more abound.
All hail, "An hundred years ago!"
And when our lips are dumb,
Be millions heard rejoicing so,
An hundred years to come.
Sacred Poems and Hymns
James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >
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