Jesus shall reign (Hymn with music and words) - Isaac Watts

[opticsabru]

Contd from Prev Post - But old and young alike re­joiced to­ge­ther in the joys of that day, their fac­es most of them ra­di­ant with Christ­ian joy, love, and hope. It would be im­poss­i­ble to de­scribe the deep feel­ing man­i­fest­ed when the sol­emn serv­ice be­gan, by the en­tire au­di­ence sing­ing Dr. Watts’ hymn

[opticsabru]

Contd from previous post - Un­der the spread­ing branch­es of the ban­yan trees sat some thou­sand na­tives from Ton­ga, Fi­ji, and Sa­moa, on Whit­sun­day, 1862, as­sem­bled for Di­vine wor­ship. Fore­most amongst them all sat King George him­self. Around him were seat­ed old chiefs and war­ri­ors who had shared with him the dan­gers and for­tunes of ma­ny a battle—men whose eyes were dim, and whose pow­er­ful frames were bowed down with the weight of years. CONTD

[opticsabru]

G. J. Stevenson’s Notes on the Meth­od­ist Hymn Book re­lates:

Perhaps one of the most in­ter­est­ing oc­ca­sions on which this hymn was used was that on which King George, the sa­ble, of the South Sea Is­lands, but of bless­ed mem­o­ry, gave a new con­sti­tu­tion to his peo­ple, ex­chang­ing a hea­then for a Christ­ian form of gov­ern­ment. -CONTD