The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, page 59 by Theron Brown
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Oh! well for evermore: My nest hung in no forest Of all this death-doomed shore; Yea, let this vain world vanish, As from the ship the strand, While glory, glory dwelleth In Immanuel's land.
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The little birds of Anworth-- I used to count them blest; Now beside happier altars I go to build my nest; O'er these there broods no silence No graves around them stand; For glory deathless dwelleth In Immanuel's land.
I have borne scorn and hatred, I have borne wrong and shame, Earth's proud ones have reproached me For Christ's thrice blesséd name. Where God's seals set the fairest, They've stamped their foulest brand; But judgment shines like noonday In Immanuel's land.
They've summoned me before them, But there I may not come; My Lord says, "Come up hither;" My Lord says, "Welcome home;" My King at His white throne My presence doth command, Where glory, glory dwelleth, In Immanuel's land.
A reminiscence of St. Paul in his second Epistle to Timothy (chap. 4) comes with the last two stanzas.
THE TUNE.
The tender and appropriate choral in B flat, named "Rutherford" was composed by D'Urhan, a French musician, probably a hundred years ago. It was doubtless named by those who long afterwards fitted it to the words, and knew whose spiritual proxy the lady stood who indited the hymn. It is reprinted in Peloubet's Select Songs, and in the Coronation Hymnal. Naturally in the days of the hymn's more frequent use people became accustomed to calling "The sands of time are sinking," "Rutherford's Hymn." Rutherford's own words certainly furnished the memorable refrain with its immortal glow and gladness. One of his joyful exclamations as he lay dying of his lingering disease was, "Glory shineth in Immanuel's Land!"
Chretien (Christian) Urhan, or D'Urhan, was born at Montjoie, France, about 1788, and died, in Paris, 1845. He was a noted violin-player, and composer, also, of vocal and instrumental music.
Mrs. Anne Ross (Cundell) Cou