Reading the Hymns – The Sands of Time Are Sinking

This weekend’s hymn is a follow-up to last weekend’s profile. Samuel Rutherford did not, to my knowledge, write any hymns. But in the 19^th century, someone wrote one for him.

Ann Cousin (1824-1906) was a Scottish poet and the wife of William Cousin, a Free Church of Scotland minister.  She starting writing hymns for use in her husband’s church in Irvine, Scotland. Very soon, her hymns were being used and enjoyed throughout Scotland and England.  In 1854 she wrote a poem, originally titled “The Last Words of Samuel Rutherford”, based off of his Letters and deathbed sayings. The original version contained a whopping nineteen verses, but before long five of them circulated together as “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” The full version is on the Indelible Grace website, with notes indicating which letters are referenced in each verse.

Cousin does a great job distilling Rutherford’s main pastoral themes into concise, accessible verse. The result is a beautiful Christian reflection on death and what comes after, and on the beauty of the Savior. Still, it is Cousin’s hymn and not Rutherford’s. Far from slavishly copying his catchphrases, she shows a willingness to rework even his most memorable lines and to supplement them with poetic images of her own invention. Her adaptation was so successful that the “Rutherford” quotes on the memorial in Anwoth are, in fact, Cousin quotes. In sum, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking” is at once a pithy introduction of Samuel Rutherford’s theology, and an expression of Cousin’s poetic genius.

1. The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for -
The fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark had been the midnight
But Dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s land.