But to return to the writer of the hymn and her story: she who once laughed at the pilgrims of Bala became now one of the most devout of them. She used to attend there on the Communion Sabbath, although it meant for her, as for hundreds more, a rugged mountainous journey of over twenty miles. Once on her way home she became so absorbed in holy contemplation that she rode many miles out of her way over the Berwyn Hills before ever awakening to the fact. The result of those hours of thought is kept in this hymn:
| 57 Blessed day of rest eternal From my labour, in my place! On a shoreless sea of wonders, The unfathomed depths of grace: Finding an abundant entrance To the Triune God's abode: Seas to sail and never compass; God as man, and man as God, | | Neither shall the sun light on them, Nor the fear of death give pain; Tears forgotten in the anthem Of the Lamb which once was slain: Sailing on the crystal river Of the peace of One in Three, Underneath the cloudless beamings Of the death of Cavalry. | |
Nothing could mark the intensity of feeling more strikingly than the broken sentences and rapid interchange of thoughts. 'The cloudless beamings of the death of Cavalry:'--the confused eloquence reveals the divine anguish of imagination.