But when the Sabbath evening takes us home, And we are gathered there with friends alone, We take the old brown book and once more sing, ‘Hide thou beneath the shadow of Thy wing.’ And who can tell but what in heaven above They sing again the old sweet hymns we love? We only know that when we sing them here They bring to us the Heavenly Presence near. Thus we can fight life’s battle calm and sweet, Each unborn day with courage wait to meet, ‘Blest be the tie that binds,’ we smooth the way, ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ each closing day. The old brown book a treasure still we keep, The same old hymns that rocked our friends to sleep; And if we fail to catch the newest strain, Our hearts would sing the old hymns once again.”[7] The same theme is continued in another poem by Maud Frazer Jackson in _The Sunday School Times_, entitled, “My Mother’s Song” “I heard a song that touched my heart And filled my eyes with tears. It was the song my mother sang In long-departed years,— ‘Only trust Him, only trust Him, Only trust Him now; He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now.’ How sweet the words that gave me hope That I might be restored,— ‘Come, every soul by sin oppressed, There’s mercy with the Lord.’ I seemed to hear her gentle voice As in the long ago,— ‘Plunge now into the crimson flood That washes white as snow.’ She knows tonight, my mother knows, Up there, her prayers are heard; For Jesus gives the wanderer rest, I’m ‘trusting in His Word.’” Dr. W. J. Dawson, in his reminiscences entitled _The Autobiography of a Mind_,[8] thus refers to The Note of Assurance in the Old Hymns “I came the other day upon a Methodist hymnal bearing the date of 1877, and in it I found the hymns which my mother loved to quote, and I was struck with their depth of emotion, their genuine spiritual quality. They have a note of profound assurance which I miss in the modern hymns. ‘Leader of faithful souls, and guide Of all who travel to the sky, Come and with us, even us, abide Who would on Thee alone rely. On Thee alone our spirits stay While held in life’s uneven way.’ “How fine is the crusading note in this verse! Particularly noble in sentiment and emotion are the numerous hymns dealing with death and the future state. Here is one which I confess I read with tears: ‘Rejoice for a brother deceased, Our loss is his infinite gain; A soul out of prison released, And freed from its bodily chain. With songs let us follow his flight And mount with his spirit above, Escaped to the mansions of light, And lodged in the Eden of love.’ One can fancy this hymn sung by Cornish fishermen over one of their numbers lost at sea.”