The people that walked in darkness…they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death.
Isaiah 9:2
Words: Thomas Cotterill, Selection of Psalms and Hymns, 8th edition, 1819. John Julian stated that this hymn seems to be based on O’er Those Gloomy Hills of Darkness, by William Williams.
Music: Putney Lowell Mason, Carmina Sacra (Boston, Massachusetts: John H. Wilkins & Richard B. Carter, 1844) (🔊 pdf nwc).
If you know where to get a good picture of Cotterill (head-and-shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels), would you ?
O’er the realms of pagan darkness,
Let the eye of pity gaze;
See the kindreds of the people
Lost in sin’s bewildering maze;
Darkness brooding
On the face of all the earth.
Thou to whom all power is given,
Speak the word; at Thy command
Let the company of preachers
Spread Thy name from land to land!
Lord, be with them
Alway to the end of time.