’Twas on that night when doomed to know

’Twas on that night when doomed to know. John Morison* (1750-1798). This paraphrase of Matthew 26: 26-29 was no 35 in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). It is attributed to Morison on the evidence of the daughter of William Cameron*, who thus marked her copy. According to JJ, p. 1180, it is based on a Latin hymn, ‘Nocte quâ Christus rabidis Apellis’, by Andreas Ellinger (1526-1582), translated by William Archibald, minister of Unst, Shetland (d. 1785). It has remained as Paraphrase 35 since 1781, and is found in Scottish hymnals from Church Hymnary (1898) through to CH4. It is a very moving metrical reconstruction of the Lord’s Supper, rendered all the more effective in...

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