adorable will let us gladly fulfil
And our talents improve
By the patience of hope and the labor of love.

Our life is a dream, our time as a stream
Glides swiftly away,
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.
The arrow is flown, the moment is gone,
The millennial year,
Rushes on to our view, and eternity's near.

[Illustration: Carl von Weber]

One could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than between this hymn and
Newton's. In spite of its eccentric metre one cannot dismiss it as
rhythmical jingle, for it is really a sermon shaped into a popular
canticle, and the surmise is not a difficult one that he had in mind a
secular air that was familiar to the crowd. But the hymn is not one of
Wesley's _poems_. Compilers who object to its lilting measure omit it
from their books, but it holds its place in public use, for it carries
weighty thoughts in swift sentences.

O that each in the Day of His coming may say,
"I have fought my way through,
I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do."
O that each from the Lord may receive the glad word,
"Well and faithfully done,
Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne."

For a hundred and fifty years this has been sung in the Methodist
watch-meetings, and it will be long before it ceases to be sung--and
reprinted in Methodist, and some Baptist hymnals.

The tune of "Lucas," named after James Lucas, its composer, is the
favorite vehicle of song for the "Watch-hymn." Like the tune to "O How
Happy Are They," it has the movement of the words and the emphasis of
their meaning.

No knowledge of James Lucas is at hand except that he lived in England,
where one brief reference gives his birth-date as 1762 and "about 1805"
as the birth-date of the tune.

"GREAT GOD, WE SING THAT MIGHTY HAND."

The admirable hymn of Dr. Doddridge may be noted in this division with
its equally admirable tune of "Melancthon," one of the old Lutheran
chorals of Germany.

Great God, we sing that mighty hand
By which supported still we stand.
The opening year Thy mercy shows;
Thy mercy crown it till its close!

By day, by night, at home, abroad,
Still we are guarded by our God.

As this last couplet stood--and ought now to stand--pious parents
teaching the hymn to their children heard them repeat--

By day, by night, at home, abroad,
_We are surrounded still with God_.

Many are now li