The glory of the Christian faith shines brilliantly at the time of death, whether for ourselves or for a loved one or dear friend. Just as the Scriptures transform the way we look at what would otherwise be a terribly sad event, so our hymnals have marvelous resources that enable us to sing with joy in the face of the enemy. One of the most beautiful and heart-warming is Anne Cousin’s composition based on the writings of Samuel Rutherford, organized in her hymn, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.”
Mrs. Anne (Annie) Ross Cundell Cousin (1824-1906) was born at Hull in Yorkshire, England, the only daughter of a physician. She was reared in the Church of England but later became a Presbyterian. Her husband, William Cousin of Melrose, Scotland, was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. She starting writing hymns for use in her husband’s church in Irvine, Scotland. Very soon, her hymns were being used and enjoyed throughout Scotland and England. In 1854 she wrote a poem, originally titled “The Last Words of Samuel Rutherford,” based on his letters and deathbed sayings. The original version contained a massive nineteen stanzas, but before long (1857) four of them circulated together as the hymn we now find in our hymnals: “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” The hymn was sung at the bedside of the dying English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892). It was also a favorite of the American revival preacher Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899). Mrs. Cousin died at Edinburgh, Scotland, on Dec. 6, 1906.
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) received a master’s degree from the College of Edinburgh in 1621 and was shortly thereafter appointed its professor of humanities. Also he became minister of the church at Anworth in Galloway, Scotland. His years there brought him both joy and sorrow. In 1630 his wife became ill and died. His two children soon followed her in death.
By 1630 the Church of Scotland had begun to decline in doctrine and was seeking to impose many Anglican traditions on the Reformed churches. Rutherford was charged in 1630 with non-conformity to these changes, but no penalty was brought. By 1636 the situation had worsened and Rutherford could not keep silent. He published a book warning of the rising trend away from the truth of Scripture. The book offended several church leaders including Thomas Sydserff, the Bishop of Galloway, whose territory included Anwoth. Rutherford was immediately summoned to the High Commission Court at Edinburgh and charged with non-conformity and treason for his book.
The court condemned him and banished him to Aberdeen, a city on the coast in northeast Scotland. He was provided with a home, but was forbidden to preach the gospel. It was from this “prison” that 220 of Rutherford’s letters were written. Most of these were sent to friends back in Anwoth, seeking to encourage them to persevere. Anwoth was left without a pastor when Rutherford was taken, so the congregation was suffering along with their pastor.
Rutherford’s imprisonment lasted until 1638 when a revolution arose in Scotland that led to the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant. Churches were granted more freedom as impositions of Anglicanism were resisted. Rutherford was freed and hurried back to Anwoth. He was soon asked, however, to teach at Saint Andrews as Professor of Divinity. It was from this appointment that Rutherford’s influence continued to grow. In 1644 he represented Scotland in the Westminster Assembly and helped in writing the Westminster Confession of Faith.
In 1660 with the death of Cromwell, the end of the Commonwealth, and the restoration of Charles II as king, Rutherford again found himself at odds with the state church. He was removed from church office, charged with treason, and summoned to appear before the British Parliament. When the summons came, however, Rutherford was on his deathbed. He could not answer their summons since he had a more important call from his Lord! Rutherford died on March 30, 1661. It is recorded that his dying words were “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s Land.” It was this quote that stirred the heart of Anne Ross Cousin almost two hundred years later to set the words of Rutherford into a hymn, placing this phrase at the conclusion of each stanza. The hymn is a marvelous testimony of treasuring Christ above all else in this life and the next. Of her nineteen stanzas, here are the four generally included in hymnals today.
Stanza 1 pictures an hourglass on an early summer morning, where the last few grains of sands are gradually slipping through the narrow neck into the bottom. The imagery is of life drawing to an end, but what a joyful surprise! Our life is not ending at sunset but at dawn! Our new life in heaven is just dawning! What a thrilling reminder, and a marvelous correction to our too-often somber thoughts at the end of our earthly lives. And that’s because of the One who is the Dayspring, shining bright after a dark midnight of the trials and sufferings of this life: the Lord Jesus!
The sands of time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for – The fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight But Dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth In Emmanuel’s land.
Stanza 2 points us to heaven’s greatest treasure: gazing on the beauty of the Lord Jesus Himself (Psalm 27:4). Oh, how incredible it will be when our eyes see, not through a glass darkly (“a veil”), but face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12)! Our journey to that point will have been a difficult one, almost as if through seven deaths, seven being the symbolic number of completeness, but it will have been “a well-spent journey,” more than worth every hardship. And what will we find there at our journey’s end? The Lamb, standing “with His fair army” on Mount Zion (Revelation 14:1-5).
The king there in His beauty, Without a veil is seen:
It were a well-spent journey, Though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb with His fair army, Doth on Mount Zion stand,
And glory, glory dwelleth In Emmanuel’s land.
Stanza 3 uses the imagery of Christ as a fountain that brings us delicious, renewing living water. Perhaps Anne Cousins had in mind the crystal stream that flows from beneath the throne in Revelation 22:1. It is a “deep, sweet well of love.” We only taste of it now on earth. But once home in glory “more deep I’ll drink above.” In comparison with the stream that we have now, there it will be a boundless ocean, full of His mercy!
O Christ, He is the fountain, The deep, sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I’ve tasted More deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth In Emmanuel’s land.
Stanza 4 brings us to a wedding, the wedding of the Lamb with His bride, the church. How movingly the author reminds us that as the bride starts down the aisle, she is not looking down at her white wedding dress. She is gazing adoringly, longingly at “her dear Bridegroom’s face.” And then we’re struck by the comparison. As we contemplate entering into heaven, it’s not the glory of the place that captivates us, and not thinking of “the crown He giveth.” No, at that moment, our eyes will swell with tears of joy as we look at Jesus’ “pierced hand,” and the crown of glory that rests on His majestic, royal head! As one hymn commentator has written:
“Again, Cousin – in Rutherfordian fashion – points us to the all-surpassing beauty and worth of Christ. Do not long first for Heaven, for the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and New Earth. The costly white robe is a glory, but Christ is greater. We will be given unimaginable glory of our own, but Christ’s will still be preeminent. This is not to say that we shouldn’t rejoice in God’s promise of a new, glorified body and eternal life in a renewed world. But if we are the Bride, and we look to our Lover with the eyes of love, then that great dowry is only of secondary concern. The great promise of heaven is not streets of gold, or seeing our loved ones again, or in having every tear wiped from our eyes, but to enjoy the presence of the fairest of the sons of men Who once became marred beyond human recognition to gain our admission into Emmanuel’s land.”
The bride eyes not her garment, But her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory But on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory Of Emmanuel’s land.
The repeated final phrase completes the scene of each stanza by pointing us to “the glory of Emmanuel’s Land.”
The music most frequently used today is the tune RUTHERFORD, based on a melody composed in 1834 by Chrétien Urhan (1790-1845), almost twenty years before Anne Cousins wrote the text for “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” He was a French violinist, organist, and composer and skilled performer on the viola. After studies in Paris, he was invited to join the imperial chapel as a violinist in 1810. In 1816, Urhan was appointed solo violist at the Opéra de Paris, and became solo violinist in 1825. Strongly Catholic, he was also appointed the organist at the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris in 1827, a position that he held until his death. In this position he met the young Franz Liszt, with whom he played chamber music, and also the Beethoven “Kreutzer Sonata” in a mass.
It was Edward Rimbault (1816-1876) who arranged Urhan’s melody in 1867 as the hymn we now recognize. He was born to French Huguenot refugees who had fled to England in 1685, fleeing from persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The son of a church organist, arranger, and composer, Edward became organist of the Swiss church in Soho, in addition to several other churches. He is remembered as an editor of many musical collections. After his death, his substantial library, which contained many rare items, was auctioned off, with many pieces going to the British Library. Nearly 600 items found their way to the precursor of the New York public library.
Here you can listen to the singing of the hymn.
Full List of Stanzas
- The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks,
The summer morn I’ve sighed for,
The fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - Oh! well it is forever,
Oh! well forevermore
My nest hung in no forest
Of all this death-doomed shore!
Yea, let the vain world vanish,
As from the ship the stand,
While glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - There the Red Rose of Sharon
Unfolds its heart-most bloom.
And fills the air of Heaven
With ravishing perfume;
Oh, to behold its blossom,
While by its fragrance fann’d
Where glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - The King there in His beauty,
Without a veil is seen:
It were a well-spent journey
Though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb with His fair army,
Doth on Mount Zion stand;
And glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - Oh! Christ He is the fountain,
The deep sweet well of Love!
The streams on earth I’ve tasted,
More deep I’ll drink above:
There, to an ocean fullness,
His mercy doth expand,
And glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - E’en Anwoth was not heaven—
E’en preaching was not Christ;
And in my sea-beat prison
My Lord and I held tryst:
And aye my murkiest storm-cloud
Was by a rainbow spann’d,
Caught from the glory dwelling
In Immanuel’s land. - But that He built a heaven
Of His surpassing love,
A little New Jerus’lem,
Like to the one above,—
“Lord, take me o’er the water,”
Had been my loud demand,
“Take me to love’s own country,
Unto Immanuel’s land.” - But flowers need night’s cool darkness,
The moonlight and the dew;
So Christ, from one who loved it,
His shining oft withdrew;
And then, for cause of absence,
My troubled soul I scann’d—
But glory, shadeless, shineth
In Immanuel’s land. - The little birds of Anwoth
I used to count them blest,—
Now, beside happier alters
I go to built my nest:
O’er these there broods no silence,
No graves around them stand,
For glory, deathless, dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - Fair Anwoth by the Solway,
To me thou still art dear!
E’en from the verge of Heaven
I drop for thee a tear.
Oh! if one soul from Anwoth
Meet me at God’s right hand,
My Heaven will be two Heavens,
In Immanuel’s land! - I’ve wrestled on towards Heaven,
‘Ganst storm, and wind, and tide;—
Now, like a weary traveler,
That leaneth on his guide,
Amid the shades of evening,
While sinks life’s ling’ring sand,
I hail the glory dawning
From Immanuel’s land. - Deep waters cross’d life’s pathway,
The hedge of thorns was sharp;
Now these lie all behind me,—
Oh, for a well-tuned harp!
Oh, to join Hallelujah
With yon triumphant band,
Who sing where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land! - With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustered with His love!
I’ll bless the hand that guided,
I’ll bless the heart that plann’d,
When throned where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - Soon shall the cup of glory
Wash down earth’s bitterest woes,
Soon shall the desert brier
Break into Eden’s rose:
The curse shall change to blessing–
The name on earth that’s bann’d,
Be graven on the white stone
In Immanuel’s land. - Oh! I am my Beloved’s,
And my Beloved’s mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His “house of wine:”
I stand upon His merit,
I know no other stand,
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land. - I shall sleep sound in Jesus,
Fill’d with His likeness rise,
To live and to adore Him,
To see Him with these eyes:
‘Tween me and resurrection
But Paradise doth stand;
Then—then for glory dwelling
In Immanuel’s land! - The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of Grace—
Not at the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand:
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel’s land. - I have borne scorn and hatred,
I have borne wrong and shame,
Earth’s proud ones have reproach’d me,
For Christ’s thrice blessed name:
Where God His seal set fairest
They’ve stamp’d their foulest brand;
But judgment shines like noonday
In Immanuel’s land. - They’ve summoned me before them,
But there I may not come,—
My Lord says, “Come up hither,”
My Lord says, “Welcome home!
My King now at His white throne,
My presence doth command,
Where glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.
The Sands of Time Are Sinking
Words based on the Letters of Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
From Immanuel’s Land and Other Pieces by Anne Ross Cousin (1857)
Music arranged from Chrétien Urhan (1834) by Edward F. Rimbault (1867)