Time grows not old with length of years

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Time grows not old with length of years

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 6 hymnals

Representative Text

Time grows not old with length of years;
Changes he brings but changes not;
New born each moment he appears;
We run our race, and are forgot.

Stars in perennial rounds return,
As from eternity they came,
And to eternity might burn;
We are not for one hour the same.

Spring flowers renew their glad perfume,
But ere a second spring they fly;
Our life is longer than their bloom,
Our bloom is sweeter,--yet we die.

223
Stars, like Spring-flowers, shall pass away;
Time, like the stars, must cease to roll;
We have what never can decay,--
Like flowers and stars and time,--a soul.

Lord God! when time shall end his flight,
Stars set and flowers revive no more;
May we behold Thy face in light,
Thy love in Jesus Christ adore.

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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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 >

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