266 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
in ver. 2, c Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient and yet so new ! Too late did I love Thee ! For behold Thou wert within, and I without, and there did I seek Thee ; I, un lovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not. Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness. Thou didst exhale odours, and I drew in my breath, and do pant after Thee. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
The Rev. William Arthur gives a description of Gideon Ouseley, the great Irish evangelist, which, he says, presents him exactly as he had often heard him spoken of by those in whose house Ouseley stayed. It is from the pen of the Rev. John Hughes. When he was a boy at home, he says, On a raw November evening Ouseley preached at the corner of the street in which we resided at Portarlington. After preaching, he came into our house for some refreshment, and to wait until his time came again to preach in the chapel. When he took a seat in the little back apartment it was dusk. A turf fire played fitfully, and there was no other light. I crouched in an obscure corner, and Ouseley thought himself alone. He took off his cloak and hat, ejaculated " My blessed Master ! " and wiped the perspiration from his head and face. He then poked the fire, and spread himself out before it. After musing a minute, he wept. Tear after tear rolled down his rugged cheeks. He repeated, in a low but distinct voice, the first two verses of the hymn, "Thee will I love, my strength, my tower." After re peating the line, " Ah, why did I so late Thee know," he smote his forehead with his big hand, and finished the verse.
Thus far, memory serves me clearly. I have a hazier, yet still a tolerably satisfactory remembrance that he repeated the third stanza ; and then, in his strong, hoarse voice he sang the fourth, " I thank Thee, uncreated Sun."
��Hymn 422. Talk with us, Lord, Thyself reveal.
CHARLES WESLEY (i).
Hymns and Sacred Poems , 1740 ; Works , i. 304. On a journey. The first verse is
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