What are these in bright array

Representative Text

What are these in bright array,
This innumerable throng,
Round the altar night and day,
Hymning one triumphant song:
"Worthy is the Lamb once slain,
Blessing, honour, glory, power,
Wisdom, riches, to obtain,
New dominion every hour."

These through fiery trials trod;
These from great affliction came;
Now before the throne of God,
Seal'd with His almighty name:
Clad in raiment pure and white,
Victor-palms in every hand,
Through their dear Redeemer's might,
More than conquerors they stand.

Hunger, thirst, disease unknown,
On immortal fruits they feed;
Them, the Lamb amidst the throne,
Shall to living fountains lead;
Joy and gladness banish sighs,
Perfect love dispels all fear,
And for ever from their eyes,
God shall wipe away the tear.

Sacred Poems and Hymns, 1854

Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: What are these in bright array, This innumerable throng
Title: What are these in bright array
Author: James Montgomery (1819)
Meter: 7.7.7.7 D
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

What are these in bright array? J. Montgomery. [All Saints.] Published in his Greenland and other Poems, 1819, p. 185, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, and headed “Saints in heaven." It was repeated in Cotterill's Selection, 1819, No. 204; in Montgomery's Christian Psalmist, 1825, No. 559; and in his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 237. It is given in several collections in Great Britain and America, and sometimes as, "Who are these in bright array?" In R. Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, it is rendered into Latin as "Quid sint cohortes lucidae."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Church Hymnal, Mennonite #470

The Baptist Hymnal #676

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The Cyber Hymnal #7118

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