How Still and Peaceful Is the Grave!

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How still and peaceful is the grave!

Author: Hugh Blair
Published in 97 hymnals

Choral
	Bless, O My Soul

Representative Text

1 How still and peaceful is the grave!
where, life’s vain tumults past,
th’ appointed house, by Heav’n’s decree,
receives us all at last.
2 The wicked there from troubling cease;
their passions rage no more;
and there the weary pilgrim rests
from all the toils he bore.

3 There rest the pris’ners, now releas'd
from slav'ry’s sad abode;
no more they hear th’ oppressor’s voice,
or dread the tyrant’s rod.
4 There servants, masters, small and great,
partake the same repose;
and there, in peace, the ashes mix
of those who once were foes.

5 All, levell'd by the hand of Death,
lie sleeping in the tomb;
till God, in judgment calls them forth,
to meet their final doom.

Source: The Irish Presbyterian Hymnbook #R4a

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Author: Hugh Blair

Blair, Hugh, D.D., eldest son of John Blair, merchant. Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh, April 7, 1718. In 1730 he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. in 1739. In 1742 he was ordained parish minister of Collessie, in Fife, became, in 1743, second minister of the Canongate, Edinburgh, in 1754 minister of Lady Yester's, and in 1758 joint minister of the High Church (now styled St. Giles's Cathedral). In 1762, while still retaining his pastoral charge, he was appointed the first Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh—a chair founded for him. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of St. Andrews, in 1757. He died in Edinburgh, Dec. 27, 1800. In 1744 Dr. Blair was appointed a member of the C… Go to person page >

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First Line:	How still and peaceful is the grave!
Title:	How Still and Peaceful Is the Grave!
Author:	Hugh Blair
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

Job 3:17-20
(hymns)

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Notes

How still and peaceful is the grave. Hugh Blair. [Burial of the Dead.] First appeared as No. 39 in the Draft Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, 1745, as a version of Job iii. 17-20, thus:—

"How still and peaceful is the Grave!
that silent Bed how blest!
The Wicked there from Troubling cease,
and there the Weary rest.

"There the freed Pris'ner groans no more
beneath Life's galling Load:
Mute is th' Oppressor's cruel Voice;
and broke the Tyrant's Rod.

“There Slaves and Masters equally,
and share the same Repose:
The Small and Great are there; and Friends
now mingle with their Foes."

In the draft of 1781 it appeared as No. 4, rewritten in 5 stanzas; and again, with three lines altered, in the public worship edition issued in that year by the Church of Scotland, and still in use. In the markings by the eldest daughter of W. Cameron (q.v.) the original is ascribed to Blair, and the alterations in 1781 to Cameron. It is given also in several modern hymnals in Great Britain and America. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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