The night is darkest before the morn,
When the pain is sorest the child is born,
And the Day of the Lord is at hand.
"Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell,
Famine, and Plague, and War,
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant and Misrule,
Gather, and fall in the snare.
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl to the battlefield, sneak to your grave,
In the Day of the Lord at hand."
John did not hear Greenwood's voice among the singers, but at the close
of the second verse it rose above all others. "Lads and lasses of the
chapel singing-pew," he cried, "we will better that kind of stuff. Sing
up to the tune of Olivet," and to this majestic melody he started in a
clarion-like voice Toplady's splendid hymn,
"Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain,
Thousand, thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of his train.
Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign."
The words were as familiar as their mother tongue, and Greenwood's
authoritative voice in chapel, mill, and trade meetings, was quite as
intimate and potential.
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