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

WILTSHIRE (Smart)

NAOMI (Nägeli)

NAOMI was a melody that Lowell Mason (PHH 96) brought to the United States from Europe and arranged as a hymn tune; the arrangement was first published in the periodical Occasional Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1836). Some scholars have attributed the original melody to Johann G. Nageli (PHH 315), but there…

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ST. ANNE

Though no firm documentation exists, ST. ANNE was probably composed by William Croft (PHH 149), possibly when he was organist from 1700-1711 at St. Anne's Church in Soho, London, England. (According to tradition, St. Anne was the mother of the Virgin Mary.) The tune was first published in A Suppleme…

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