Eternity Anticipated

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Eternity is just at hand

Author: Anne Steele
Tune: PORTUGAL (Thorley)
Published in 141 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Eternity is just at hand!--
And shall I waste my ebbing sand;
And careless view departing day,
And throw my inch of time away?

2 But an eternity there is
Of endless wo, or endless bliss;
And swift as time fulfils its round,
We to eternity are bound.

3 What countless millions of mankind
Have left this fleeting world behind!
They're gone! but where?--ah, pause and see,
Gone to a long eternity.

4 Sinner! canst thou for ever dwell
In all the fiery deeps of hell;
And is death nothing, then, to thee;
Death, and a dread eternity?

Source: Hymns, Selected and Original: for public and private worship (1st ed.) #242

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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