A Song for the New Year

Horatius Bonar, one of the justly famous ministers of the Free Church of Scotland in the nineteenth century wrote the following hymn while superintendent of the Sunday school at the Church of St. James, Leith. "It was one of the first hymns he wrote, and the only one he composed specifically for his Sunday school students. It was sung for the first time on New Year's Day, 1843" (a portentious year for the Scottish Kirk). "Bonar published it in his Songs for the Wilderness the following year." (See www.cyberhymnal.org). As Pastor Lignon Duncan writes, "It puts our present time in the perspective of eternity. Notice how the day of the Lord is variously styled: that "great," "calm," "sweet," "glad" day. Is that how you think of it?

A few more years shall roll,
A few more seasons come,
And we shall be with those that rest
Asleep within the tomb;
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that great day.

Refrain
O wash me in Thy precious blood,
And take my sins away.

A few more suns shall set
O’er these dark hills of time,
And we shall be where suns are not
A far serener clime:
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that blest day.

Refrain

A few more storms shall beat
On this wild rocky shore,
And we shall be where tempests cease,
And surges swell no more;
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that calm day.

Refrain

A few more struggles here,
A few more partings o’er,
A few more toils, a few more tears,
And we shall weep no more:
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that bright day.

Refrain

’Tis but a little while,
And He shall come again
Who died that we might live, Who lives
That we with Him may reign;
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that glad day.

Refrain