Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

I lingered, contemplating the view, till it was time to look for an inn; I chose the Talbot, and had no reason to repent my choice. On the way thither, I bought two religious ballads at a little shop, the mistress of which told me she sold “hundreds of ’em,” and that they were printed at Otley. As specimens of a class of compositions which are relished and sung as hymns by a numerous section of the community, they are eminently suggestive. Do they supply a real want? Are they harmless? Are they edifying? Can they who find satisfaction therein be led up to something better? To close this chapter, here follows a quotation from The Railway to Heaven:

O! what a deal we hear and read
About Railways and railway speed,
Of lines which are, or may be made;
And selling shares is quite a trade.

Allow me, as an old Divine,
To point you to another line,
Which does from earth to heaven extend,
Where real pleasures never end.

Of truth divine the rails are made,
And on the Rock of Ages laid;
The rails are fix’d in chairs of love,
Firm as the throne of God above.

One grand first-class is used for all,
For Jew and Gentile, great and small,
There’s room for all the world inside,
And kings with beggars here do ride.

About a hundred years or so
Wesley and others said they’d go:
A carriage mercy did provide,
That Wesley and his friends might ride.

’Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say,
Whoever lives to see next May,
Another coach was added then
Unto this all important train.

Jesus is the first engineer,
He does the gospel engine steer;
We’ve guards who ride, while others stand
Close by the way with flag in hand.

CHORUS.
“My son,” says God, “give me thy heart;
Make haste, or else the train will start.”

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

I lingered, contemplating the view, till it was time to look for an inn; I chose the Talbot, and had no reason to repent my choice. On the way thither, I bought two religious ballads at a little shop, the mistress of which told me she sold “hundreds of ’em,” and that they were printed at Otley. As specimens of a class of compositions which are relished and sung as hymns by a numerous section of the community, they are eminently suggestive. Do they supply a real want? Are they harmless? Are they edifying? Can they who find satisfaction therein be led up to something better? To close this chapter, here follows a quotation from The Railway to Heaven:

O! what a deal we hear and read
About Railways and railway speed,
Of lines which are, or may be made;
And selling shares is quite a trade.

Allow me, as an old Divine,
To point you to another line,
Which does from earth to heaven extend,
Where real pleasures never end.

Of truth divine the rails are made,
And on the Rock of Ages laid;
The rails are fix’d in chairs of love,
Firm as the throne of God above.

One grand first-class is used for all,
For Jew and Gentile, great and small,
There’s room for all the world inside,
And kings with beggars here do ride.

About a hundred years or so
Wesley and others said they’d go:
A carriage mercy did provide,
That Wesley and his friends might ride.

’Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say,
Whoever lives to see next May,
Another coach was added then
Unto this all important train.

Jesus is the first engineer,
He does the gospel engine steer;
We’ve guards who ride, while others stand
Close by the way with flag in hand.

CHORUS.
“My son,” says God, “give me thy heart;
Make haste, or else the train will start.”

365 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Ballad (18) ·
• Metaphor (2) ·
• Nonconformism (47) ·
• 📌Otley (11) ·
• Rail transport (22) ·
• Railway Mania (5) ·
• Walking (18) ·
• Wesley, John (1703-91) (21), cleric and leader of a evangelical revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism ·
• 📌Whitby (20), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk ·
• White, Walter (10), writer ·

All tags.

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