The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of Heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for—the fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

O Christ, He is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love!
The streams of earth I’ve tasted more deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

With mercy and with judgement my web of time He wove,
And aye, the dews of sorrow were lustered with His love;
I’ll bless the hand that guided, I’ll bless the heart that planned
When throned where glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

The Bride eyes not her garment, but her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory but on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth but on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel’s land.  

                                                                           Anne Cousin / Samuel Rutherford

My Little Gnurdren,

In the manner of all old gnus, Old Gnu looks back and prattles on about the past. Recently he has been reading a wee book about “London’s Lost Rivers”:

In his adolescent years he lived in the basement of this house – the one with the blue door…

… and travelled from this tube station …

… to Central Foundation Boys’ Grammar School by Old Street tube station and 5 minutes walk from the Bank of England.

As Old Gnu has grown in his understanding of the English language recently, he fell to wondering where the “bourne” was and what it was west of. Well in fact the River Westbourne started on Hampstead Heath, running down by Westbourne Park it fed into the Serpentine, Hyde Park, and through it southward it joined the Thames just west of Chelsea Bridge. See the map below:

The Westbourne River is one of well over 30 rivers and brooks which ran through London. But with the passage of time, they mostly have been built over. Some have become culverts, others sewers, others filled in. Some are, in part visible, if you know where to look. But many still exist but underground; their location lost to the ‘man/person on the street’. [‘Woman’ would have the wrong overtones here.] The author of London’s Lost Rivers obviously spent a long time looking for them and identifying their whereabouts.

But Mr. PT, the author, does not seem to have made any attempt to uncover the whereabouts of Immanuel’s Land, probably because it’s not a river. Having said that, it could be possibly be buried in the environs of London. Mrs. Anne Cousin, in her 19-stanza poem, more widely known in its reduced 4 stanza hymn version, “The sands of time are sinking” seems to have located Immanuel’s Land with some certainty.

As far as Old Gnu can make out, the first person to mention it was the writer of Isaiah [ch.7 and 8]. But let us work backwards starting with Mrs. Cousin. She was a jolly good pianist, despite being born in Hull, and married a minister in the Free Church of Scotland. In this role she wrote hymns for her husband’s church services. She obviously became tuned in to all things Scottish and read extensively the writings of Samuel Rutherford

Mrs. Cousin’s 19 stanza poem was originally titled: Last words of Reverend Samuel Rutherford: with some of his sweet sayings.

 Very very briefly Mr. Rutherford was a Scottish minister, then Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews. In 1643 he was appointed one of the four main Commissioners of the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly and preached several times before Parliament. He like Mr. Thomas Tomkins, suffered from the religious swings of the monarchy and church; in favour one minute, out the next so to speak.  After the restoration of the monarchy, Mr. Rutherford, a staunch Protester, was marked out for persecution. His written works were ordered to be burned and in 1661 he was due to appear before Parliament on charges of treason. But he died before he got there, thus sparing himself the bother of being executed. As for the rest of the acts of Mr. Rutherford and the Covenanters, all the other miraculous ways he withstood opposition, and how he declined professorships in Utrecht and Harderwyck; are they not written in the Chronicles of Mr. Waki Pedia? The Plymouth Brethren Archive website reports…” the Scottish martyr’s dying words, ‘Glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.’ A song of heaven, it deservedly takes high rank, for no other hymn on this theme—so dear to the Christian heart—expresses with such emphasis, the secret joy of heaven’s attraction”.

Well even if they were not his dying words, Mrs. Cousin certainly kicks Immanuel’s Land into the heavenly long grass. Mr. PT, in her opinion, would have been wise not to try and uncover it in London.

Working backwards, the next person Old Gnu is aware of to have mentioned Immanuel’s Land is John Bunyan.

In his book The Pilgrim’s Progress Mr. Bunyan retrieves Immanuel’s Land from the heavenly long grass where unto Mrs. Cousin/Rev. Professor Rutherford have kicked it and places it this side of the River of Death in the land of mortals. It is a place of spiritual refreshment and beauty, and from it one can glimpse the gates of the Heavenly City.

Continuing backwards we come to the first occurrence of the notion of Immanuel’s Land.

It’s mentioned once in Isaiah chapter 8 and referred to indirectly in Isaiah chapter 7.

The historical context is as follows.  In the political turbulence of the 8th Century BC Ancient Near East, King Ahaz of Judah is rebuked by Isaiah for dashing round like a blue bottomed fly trying to slyly make the best political alliance to ensure his future wellbeing. The prophet rebukes him for his lack of trust in God and says he will receive a sign: he will witness a young woman – [for the Hebrew word has that meaning] – a person with little power to influence things let alone understand the intrigue of Ahaz’s international negotiations. But, rather than pointless panic, she expresses a profound trust in the Almighty by calling her little mite, Immanuel, which means God with us. A rebuke for the king, from a young mum!

And Isaiah tells us the things that will happen in the land where Immanuel lives: Because the people have rejected God, the King of Assyria sweep through Judah like a flood and there will be battle in the land where the little mite, Immanuel, lives, and plans to withstand him will fail. Read it for yourself in Isaiah 8:6-8. But if you read chapter 7:18-25 you will find that the land in which the child is brought up is a place of both great deprivation and judgement mixed with rich resources for survival.

So Mr. Isaiah agrees with Mr. Bunyan that Immanuel’s land is located on earth; but amidst the troubles of the world there is mysteriously a rich resource provided by God in times of trouble. Ah! At last we have uncovered Immanuel’s Land. It could possibly be found in London or anywhere on Earth.

Nevertheless, Old Gnu likes Mrs. Cousin’s hymn. His favourite lines are:

With mercy and with judgement, my web of time he wove,
and aye the dews of sorrow were lustred with his love.

Ah! Isn’t that nice! …and also very Scottish.

Dear Reader, judgement in this context means a considered decision, discernment, and not a bad bout of divine smiting.

Vetus Pater Gnu
Musicorum et Theologia
Turris LA / Immanuel Terra
XXI Mensis Octobris MMXXI