Dedication
To
My Wife and Daughters
THE GOOD OLD HYMNS
Epigraph
There’s lots of music in ’em, the hymns of long ago;
An’ when some gray-haired brother sings the ones I used to know
I sorter want to take a hand—I think o’ days gone by—
“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye.”
There’s lots of music in ’em—those dear, sweet hymns of old,
With visions bright of lands of light and shining streets of gold;
And I hear ’em ringing—singing, where memory dreaming stands,
“From Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strands.”
We hardly needed singin’ books in them old days: we knew
The words, the tunes, of every one, the dear old hymn book through!
We had no blaring trumpets then, no organs built for show;
We only sang to praise the Lord, “from whom all blessings flow.”
An’ so I love the dear old hymns, and when my time shall come—
Before the light has left me and my singing lips are dumb—
If I can only hear ’em then, I’ll pass, without a sigh,
“To Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie!”
—Frank L. Stanton in The Atlanta Constitution