{
 "id": "john-newton/uncertainty-of-life",
 "title": "Uncertainty of Life",
 "ordinal": "3",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 144,
 "container": "New Year’s Hymns",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 4,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "See! another year is gone!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quickly have the seasons pass’d!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This we enter now upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will to many prove their last:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mercy hitherto has spared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But have mercies been improved?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us ask, Am I prepared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should I be this year removed?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some we now no longer see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who their mortal race have run;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seem’d as fair for life as we,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the former year begun:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some, but who God only knows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who are here assembled now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere the present year shall close,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the stroke of death must bow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Life a field of battle is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thousands fall within our view:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the next death-bolt that flies:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May be sent to me or you:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While we preach and while we hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Help us, Lord, each one to think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vast eternity is near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am standing on the brink.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If from guilt and sin set free",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the knowledge of thy grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Welcome then the call will be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To depart and see thy face:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thy saints while here below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With new years new mercies come;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the happiest year they know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the last, which leads them home.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}