The latter hymn has often been criticized because of its strong
figurative language. The expression, "a fountain filled with blood," has
proved so offensive to modern taste that many hymn-books have omitted
this touching hymn. Dr. Ray Palmer, writer of "My faith looks up to
Thee," opposed these views vigorously. He once wrote:

"Such criticism seems to us superficial. It takes the words as if they
were intended to be a literal prosaic statement. It forgets that what
they express is not only poetry, but the poetry of intense and
impassioned feeling, which naturally embodies itself in the boldest
metaphors. The inner sense of the soul, when its deepest affections are
moved, infallibly takes these metaphors in their true significance, while
a cold critic of the letter misses that significance entirely. He merely
demonstrates his own lack of the spiritual sympathies of which, for
fervent Christian hearts, the hymn referred to is an admirable
expression."

Certainly it is a hymn that has spread blessings in its path, and
countless are the stories of how it has broken down the resistance of
hardened human hearts. One of these tells how a Belfast minister once
visited a mill where two hundred girls were employed, many of them from
his own congregation. One girl, when she saw her pastor entering, began
to sing "There is a fountain filled with blood." Other girls took up the
lines, and soon the glorious song was ringing above the noise of all the
looms. The manager, who was an unbeliever, was so moved that he seized
his hat and ran from the building. Later he confessed to the minister, "I
never was so hard put to it in all my life. It nearly broke me down."

Cowper also wrote a number of secular poems that achieved great fame.
"The Task," has been called "one of the wisest books ever written, and
one of the most charming." Another poem, "John Gilpin," is a very happy
and mirthful narrative.

Although Cowper's mother died in his early childhood, he never forgot
her. When he was fifty-six years old, a cousin sent him a miniature of
his mother. In acknowledging the gift, he wrote: "I had rather possess my
mother's picture than the richest jewel in the British crown; for I loved
her with an affection that her death, fifty years since, has not in the
least abated."

Cowper died in 1800. Three years before his death, he lost his lifelong
comforter and friend, Mrs. Morley Unwin, who had cared for him with the
solicitude of a mot