What would you say of a man who wrote the following lyrics?

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation we sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation, and find it ever new.
Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing but He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing will clothe His people, too;
Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the field should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice.

He would seem to have an indominatible spirit, wouldn't you think?  The kind of person who always sees the glass half full, and not half empty.  Welcome to the world of William Cowper, friend of John Newton, life-time bachelor and one much troubled with numerous bouts of deep depression and mental illness. 

Through it all, he persevered, sustained by the light from above that would surprise him while he sang.  In his better hours, he could write prose with wit and bite. In the following letter, he sounds like someone caught up in the worship wars of recent years, discoursing on the behavior of some country churches he had recently visited.  First he comments on the various distractions he had to encounter in worship......

"......... I was concerned to see several distressed pastors, as well as many of our country-churches in a tottering condition, I was more offended with the indecency of worship in others. I could wish that the clergy would inform their congregations, that there is no occasion to scream themselves hoarse in making the responses; that the town-crier is not the only person qualified to pray with due devotion; and that he who bawls the loudest may, nevertheless, be the wickedest fellow in the parish."

"The old women too in the aisle might be told, that their time would be better employed in attending to the sermon, than in fumbling over their tattered Testaments till they have found the text; by which time the discourse is near drawing to a conclusion: while a word or two of instruction might not be thrown away upon the younger part of the congregation, to teach them, that making posies in summertime, and cracking nuts in autumn, is no part of the religious ceremony."

And then, sounding like some of the standard complaints we have all heard that involve band-led worship..........

“The good old practice of psalm-singing is, indeed, wonderfully improved in many country-churches since the days of Sternhold and Hopkins; and there is scarce a parish-clerk, who has so little taste as not to pick his staves out of the New Version. This has occasioned great complaints in some places, where the clerk has been forced to bawl by himself, because the rest of the congregation cannot find the psalm at the end of their Prayer-books; while others are highly disgusted at the innovation, and stick as obstinately to the Old Version as to the old style."

"The tunes themselves have also been new set to jiggish measures; and the sober drawl, which used to accompany the two first staves of the hundredth psalm with the Gloria Patri, is now split into as many quavers [sub-divided beats] as an Italian air. [copying the world!]

For this purpose, there is in every county an itinerant band of vocal musicians, who make it their business to go round to all the churches in their turns, and, after a prelude with the pitch-pipe, astonish the audience with hymns set to the new Winchester measure, and anthems of their own composing."

"As these new-fashioned psalmodists are necessarily made up of young men and maids, we may naturally suppose, that there is a perfect concord and symphony between them: and, indeed, I have known it happen, that these sweet singers have more than once been brought into disgrace, by too close an unison between the thorough-bass and the treble." [Cowper here seems to be disturbed by the use of vocal harmonization!]

Well, his good friend John Newton preached at his funeral in May of 1800.

"The Lord has given me many friends but with none have I had so great an intimacy, as with my friend Mr. Cowper. But he is gone.....Mr. Cowper was afflicted with what is called a nervous complaint to such a degree as might justly be called insanity. He had an attack very early in life which did not continue long. 

One night he had a remarkable dream or vision.  He thought a child, a very beautiful little boy, came and looked on him while he was asleep. When he awoke he felt his mind much affected by his dream, but as he was sitting at his breakfast the Lord shone in upon his soul and so enlightened his understanding and gave such a clear view of the gospel and his interest in it without his ever reading it or hearing a gospel sermon that for seven years afterwards I never in all my life saw a man walk — I want to say so honorably - but so closely with God and always set the Lord before him in all he did. I believe during that time we were not seven hours without being together.....

The first temptation the enemy assaulted him with was to offer up himself as Abraham his son. He verily thought he ought to do it. We were obliged to watch with him night and day. I, my dear wife and Mrs. Unwin with whom he lived left him not an hour for seven years. He was also tempted to think butcher’s meat was human flesh, therefore he would not take it. We found it very difficult to provide any sustenance he would take.....

I don’t know a person upon earth I consult upon a text of Scripture or any point of conscience so much to my satisfaction as Mr. Cowper. He could give comfort though he could not receive any himself. He was not only a comfort to me but a blessing to the affectionate poor people among whom I then lived. He used frequently to visit them and pray with them.

I had the honor to be rector over a set of poor plain people, chiefly lace makers. Their great confinement caused in them great depression of spirits. They used to say, 0 Sir if I was right, sure I should not feel so. But they well knew Mr. Cowper: they knew he was right, and from him they could take comfort.

I have had hopes the Lord would remove his malady a little time before his death but it continued. The last twelve hours of his life he did not speak nor seem to take notice of anything but lay in a state of apparent insensibility. But I seem to think that while the curtains were taking down in the tabernacle removing, glory broke in upon his soul.

The Lord had set his seal upon him and though he had not seen him he had grace to love him. He was one of those who came out of great tribulation. He suffered much here for twenty-seven years, but eternity is long enough to make amends for all. For what is all he endured in this life, when compared with that rest which remaineth for the children of God?

The Newton funeral excerpts are from “The Life Of John Newton By Richard Cecil” edited by Marylynn Rouse, published by Christian Focus, 2000