There Is an Eye that Never Sleeps

Representative Text

1 There is an Eye that never sleeps
Beneath the wing of night;
There is an Ear that never shuts
When sink the beams of light.

2 There is an Arm that never tires
When human strength gives way;
There is a Love that never fails
When earthly loves decay.

3 But there's a power which man can wield
When mortal aid is vain,
That Eye, that Arm, that Love to reach,
That listening Ear to gain.

4 That power is prayer, which soars on high,
Through Jesus, to the throne,
And moves the Hand which moves the world,
To bring salvation down!

Amen.

Source: The Hymnal of The Evangelical United Brethren Church #242

Author: James Cowden Wallace

Wallace, James Cowden, was born at Dudley, circa 1793. He was brother of the Rev. Robert Wallace (1791-1880), Professor of Theology in Manchester New College, and author of Antitrinitarian Biography. J. C. Wallace was Unitarian minister at Totnes, 1824, and afterwards at Brighton and Wareham. He died at Wareham in 1841. He was a prolific hymnwriter, and contributed various other poetical pieces to the Monthly Repository. In a Selection of Hymns for Unitarian Worship, by R. Wallace, Chesterfield, 1822, there are 13 of his hymns, and in the 2nd edition of the same, 1826, there are 29 more. There are also 10 of his hymns in the Dukinfield Selection of Psalms & Hymns for Christian Worship, 1822 (still in use), and 64 in Beard's Collection of H… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: There is an eye that never sleeps
Title: There Is an Eye that Never Sleeps
Author: James Cowden Wallace
Meter: 8.6.8.6
Language: English
Refrain First Line: The all seeing eye
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

There is an eye that never sleeps, p. 1197, i.; Wallace, J. C. At this place this hymn is given to James Cowden Wallace in error. It is by John Aikman Wallace, p. 1594, ii., and appeared in the Scottish Christian Herald, Sep. 28, 1839, p. 616. W. F. Stevenson, in his note thereon in his Hymns for the Church and Home, 1872, says that the original was furnished to him in manuscript by Mr. Wallace's family, that the lines were not divided into stanzas, and that the received version of the text is an amended form required by the metre, and made by an unknown hand. Stevenson gives also specimen lines from the MS.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Tune

EVAN (Havergal)

This tune [EVAN], "the popularity of which in Scotland, America, and the Colonies is quite unprecedented" (Tonic Sol Fa Reporter, May 15, 1870), consists of the 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th strains of "O Thou dread Power" a sacred song by the Rev. W.H. Havergal, the melody being unaltered. EVAN II is the…

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