Words: , circa 1872. She wrote these words for Silas Vail. Music: . |
In Sacred Songs and Solos, wrote this introduction to his song “Home at Last, Thy Labor Done”:
Written on the dying words of a young convert (Maggie Lindsay) who lost her life in the railroad catastrophe at Manuel Junction, Scotland.
Note.—All was packed, and ready for her going home to Aberdeen, her school-days being over. At 6:35 on Tuesday morning, the train for the North started; and she, with her eyes upon her hymn-book, the leaf turned down at her best-loved song, “The Gate Ajar for Me,” tasted once more of the love of Jesus. The awful catastrophe took place; and the collision with the mineral train left her severely injured, and the page of hymn-book stained with her blood. During the two days of suffering that followed in the house to which she was moved at Manuel, the scene of the railway accident, she often whispered and sang the words of the hymn which was to be her song till death. The minister who watched by her said the expression of her countenance could not be described as she again and again repeated the words, “Yes, for me, for me!”
There is a gate that stands ajar,
And through its portals gleaming
A radiance from the cross afar,
The Savior’s love revealing.
Refrain
O depth of mercy! Can it be
That gate was left ajar for me?
For me! For me!
Was left ajar for me!
That gate ajar stands free for all
Who seek through it salvation;
The rich and poor, the great and small,
Of every tribe and nation.
Refrain
Press onward, then, though foes may frown,
While mercy’s gate is open;
Accept the cross, and win the crown,
Love’s everlasting token.
Refrain
Beyond the river’s brink we’ll lay
The cross that here is given,
And bear the crown of life away,
And love Him more in Heaven.
Refrain