The sands of time are sinking

The sands of time are sinking. Anne Ross Cousin* (1824-1906). Written at Irvine, Ayrshire, in 1854, and first published in The Christian Treasury (1857). It was headed ‘The Last Words of Samuel Rutherford’. These words were ‘Glory — glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land’, referring to the dying words of the Scottish Covenanter, Samuel Rutherford (1600-61). Rutherford’s words gave Cousin the last two lines of each stanza. It also gave her the title for her book of poems, by ‘A.R.C.’, Immanuel’s Land and other Pieces (1876), where the hymn itself was also entitled ‘Immanuel’s Land’. There were originally nineteen 8-line stanzas. The stanzas began as follows: The sands of time are sinking,  The...