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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