Soon will our Saviour from heaven appear

Soon will our Saviour from heaven appear. Ada Ruth Habershon* (1861-1918). This hymn is dated 1905, during the period when Habershon was writing many hymns for the evangelical campaign of Charles M. Alexander* and his teacher Reuben Archer Torrey*. It was frequently given the title ‘Oh, What a Change’, from the refrain that emphasises the message of the hymn, which is that at the Second Coming ‘all will be changed’ (from 1 Corinthians 15: 51): loneliness to reunion, darkness to light, storms to ‘ineffable calm’, and weeping to ‘a jubilant psalm’. The fourth and final stanza makes a superb climax: Weakness will change to magnificent strength, Failure will change to perfection at length,...