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.