Since All the Downward Tracts of Time

Representative Text

1 Since all the varying scenes of time
God's watchful eye surveys,
O who so wise to choose our lot,
Or to appoint our ways?

2 Good, when he gives, supremely good,
Nor less when he denies;
E'en crosses, from his sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise.

3 Why should we doubt a Father's love,
So constant and so kind?
To his unerring, gracious will
Be every wish resigned.

Source: The Seventh-Day Adventist Hymn and Tune Book: for use in divine worship #730

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Author: James Hervey

Hervey, James, M.A., son of the Rector of Weston-Favell and Collingtree, diocese of Peterborough, was born at Hardingstone, near Northampton, Feb. 14, 1714, and educated at the Free Grammar School, Northampton, and Lincoln College, Oxford. At Oxford he had John Wesley, then a Fellow of Lincoln, as his tutor. Ordained in 1736, he assisted his father for a short time, and then became Curate of Dummer. At the end of a year he passed on to Devonshire, first as a guest of Mr. Orchard, at Stoke Abbey, and then as Curate of Bideford. In 1742 he left Bideford and rejoined his father, whom he succeeded as Rector of Weston-Favell and Collingtree in 1752. He died Dec. 25, 1758. His controversial and religious writings were very popular at one time, bu… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Since all the varying scenes of time
Title:	Since All the Downward Tracts of Time
Author:	James Hervey
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Source:	Reflections from a Flower Garden, 1746
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Since all the coming [varying] scenes of time. Altered forms of "Since all the downward tracts of time," p. 517, i.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

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Tune

DOWNS (Mason)

CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN (Vulpius)

Melchior Vulpius (PHH 397) composed this short chorale tune, published as a setting for the anonymous funeral hymn "Christus, der ist mein Leben" ("For Me to Live Is Jesus") in Vulpius's Ein Schön Geistlich Gesangbuch (1609). Johann S. Bach (PHH 7) based his Cantata 95 on this tune and provided two…

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MANOAH (Greatorex)

MANOAH was first published in Henry W. Greatorex's Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1851). This anthology (later editions had alternate titles) contained one of the best tune collections of its era and included thirty-seven original compositions and arrangements by compiler Greatorex as well as m…

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Arrangements

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