At every motion [moment] of our breath

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At every motion [moment] of our breath

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 21 hymnals

Piano/Organ
	Hymn Harmonizations, Set 5

Representative Text

At every motion of our breath,
Life trembles on the brink of death,
A taper's flame that upward turns,
While downward to the dust it burns.

A moment usher'd us to birth,
Heirs to the commonwealth of earth;
Moment by moment years are past,
And one ere long will be our last.

'Twixt that, long fled, which gave us light,
And that which soon shall end in night,
There is a point no eye can see,
Yet on it hangs eternity.

This is that moment,--who can tell
Whether it leads to heaven or hell?
This is that moment,--as we choose,
The immortal soul we save or lose.

224
Time past and time to come are not;
Time present is our only lot;
O God! henceforth our hearts incline
To seek no other love than thine.

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

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First Line:	At every motion [moment] of our breath
Author:	James Montgomery
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Revelation 10:6
(hymns)

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Notes

At every motion of our breath. J. Montgomery. [Value of Time.] Published in his Christian Psalmist, 1825, No. 512, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines and headed, "The Value of a Moment." In 1853 it was repeated in his Original Hymns, No. 224, but is not amongst the “M. MSS." It is usually given in an abbreviated form. In J. H. Thorn's Hymns, Chants, &c, 1858, it is in 3 stanzas, and in the Scottish Evangelical Union Hymnal, 1878, there are 4 stanzas.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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