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: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011),  vol. 5,  pp. 96-97; Baptist Magazine, 1 (August 1809), p. 383.