Ordination Hymn

While heaven withdraws the nation’s light,

And through the darkness low’rs;

Arise ye watchmen of the night,

And guard the heavy hours.

Stand – and your holy vigils keep,

And trim the sacred fires;

Nor at the posts of Zion sleep,

Where God himself inquires.

Watch – where the shadow of his hand,

Projects the deepest gloom;

And rouse the slumberers of your land,

With Idumea’s doom.

Go – sound the solemn charge, return,

Throughout Britannia’s shore;

And while we at her altars mourn,

May God the light restore.

S—

*Isaiah xxi, 11, 12

Text: Baptist Magazine, 1 (August 1809), p. 383; Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 5, pp. 96-97.