So last Saturday we tromped through this Edinburgh cemetery looking for Horatius Bonar’s grave. We wandered for quite a while. The stones around us were old and weathered to the point of decaying. Several of them would have fallen over at a touch.
Adam Smith is buried in that cemetery as well. His grave was easy to find. It is right at the gate. (I am tempted to digress here about the fact that Adam Smith’s economic principles make great sense and have, in my reading of history, proven to promote prosperity and liberty. I am also tempted to digress here about how some of the economic principles our current administration is implementing will, in my reading of the present based on history, curtail both liberty and prosperity. But that is all I will say about that.)
I wish you could have seen this place and sensed the age of the gravestones. It was unforgettable. We wandered the whole place and couldn’t find Horatius’ stone. Finally I approached the church building (which closed up) and rattled the door. After a few moments a man came out. He was an elder of the congregation there. He did not know who Horatius Bonar was. Huh? That was disturbing to me. Anyway, he did find a map of the graves which we used to find the right one.
His sermons and poems have long been a blessing to Amy and me.
Here are two hymns he wrote in 1866.
NOT WHAT MY HANDS HAVE DONE
Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.
Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.
I praise the Christ of God; I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
My Lord has saved my life and freely pardon gives;
I love because He first loved me, I live because He lives.
HERE, O MY LORD, I SEE THEE
“Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” Revelation 19:9
Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon Thee lean.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heavenly table spread for me;
Here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
The hallowed hour of fellowship with Thee.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with Thee the royal wine of heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
I have no help but thine; nor do I need
Another arm save thine to lean upon;
It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;
My strength is in thy might, thy might alone.
Mine is the sin, but thine the righteousness:
Mine is the guilt, but thine the cleansing
Here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace;
Thy Blood, thy righteousness, O Lord my God!
Too soon we rise; the symbols disappear;
The feast, though not the love, is past and gone.
The bread and wine remove; but Thou art here,
Nearer than ever, still my shield and sun.
Feast after feast thus comes and passes by;
Yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
Giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
The Lamb’s great bridal feast of bliss and love.