Song of the Month: The Ninety and Nine

          The writer of this month’s poem was Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas Clephane, known mostly as ‘Eliza’. In an introduction to an illustrated booklet (1877) based on the poem, her sister says she was “a very quiet child, shrinking from notice, absorbed in books…Her love of poetry was a passion.” A friend first published this poem about 1868, under the title, The Lost Sheep, in The Children’s Hour magazine. It was reprinted in a paper and was found by Ira Sankey as he and D.L.Moody were travelling by train from Glasgow to Edinburgh in 1874. 


     Mr. Sankey had been looking through his hymn-book for a song suitable for shepherds, whom they expected in their audience that evening, so he cut out the poem and slipped it into his musical scrap-book. David Beattie then reports the story: “Soon afterwards, at the close of an impressive address on The Good Shepherd, given in the Free Church Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, Moody turned to Sankey and asked him to sing something in keeping with his subject. For a moment Sankey was unable to think of a suitable hymn, but suddenly remembering the little poem he had been reading in the train, he took the cutting from his pocket, and placing it before him on the organ, Sankey lifted his heart in prayer to God…”
     Sankey’s own words, on his last visit to Scotland, in the winter of 1898-99, were: “Laying my hands upon the organ, I struck the chord of A flat, and began to sing: 
       There were ninety and nine that safely lay…
     Note by note the tune was given, which has not changed from that day to this. As the singing ceased, a great sigh seemed to go up from the meeting, and I knew that the song had reached the hearts of my Scottish audience.”
     Eliza Clephane was born in Edinburgh in 1830 but was taken to Melrose as a child. She came to Canada and lived for some time with her brother in Fergus, Ontario, and it is rumoured that he was her “lost sheep”. George Clephane died in 1851, at the age of 32, apparently of pneumonia caught after a fall from his horse, and was buried behind St. Andrew’s church in Fergus. 

     Again quoting her sister’s words about Eliza, “Gathering little forlorn children both on weekdays and on Sundays, she taught them for this life and the life to come…helping with strong compassion to raise and restore the fallen and those who were out of the way…doing all heartily, and for the Master she honored and loved.” This poem was written by Eliza about 1868 at Bridgend House, Melrose, and it was here that Elizabeth Clephane  passed away on February 19, 1869:—  

There were ninety and nine that safely lay
  In the shelter of the fold,
But one was out on the hills away,
  Far off from the gates of gold—
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
  Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

Lord, thou has here thy ninety and nine;
  Are they not enough for thee?”
But the Shepherd made answer:     “This of mine
Has wandered away from me;
And although the road be rough and steep
  I go to the desert to find my sheep.”

But none of the ransomed ever knew
  How deep were the waters crossed,
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through
  Ere he found his sheep that was lost.
Out in the desert he heard its cry—
  Sick and helpless, and ready to die.

Lord, whence are those blood-drops all the way
  That mark out the mountain’s track?”
“They were shed for one who had gone astray
  Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.”
“Lord, whence are thy hands so rent and torn?”
  “They are pierced tonight by many a thorn.”

But all thro’ the mountains, thunder-riven,
  And up from the rocky steep,
There rose a cry to  the gate of heaven,
  “Rejoice! I have found my sheep!”
And the angels echoed around the throne,
  “Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own!”