"WIGTOWNSHIRE, a maritime county in the SW extremity of Scotland, forms the W division of Galloway, and contains the most southernly land in Scotland. It is bounded on the N partly by the mouth of the Firth of Clyde, but chiefly by Ayrshire, E by Kirkcudbrightshire, S by the Irish Sea, and W by the Irish Channel....
...The interior is divided into three great districts. The peninsula, or rather the double peninsula, W of Loch Ryan and Luce Bay, is known as the Rhinns of Galloway; the district which forms the broad-based triangular peninsula between Luce Bay and Wigtown Bay is called the Machers; while the rest of the county, N of the Machers and E of Loch Ryan, bears the loose general name of the Moors...
...The streams of Wigtownshire are very numerous, but for the most part of short course and unimportant size. The chief is the Cree, which for 21 and a half miles forms the boundaries between Kirkcudbright and Wigtown shires, just before it enters Wigtown Bay at Creetown....
...Wigtownshire is almost exclusively an agricultural and grazing county, its manufacture and commerce, and mining being but of little importance...
...The royal burghs in the county are Wigtown, Stranraer, and Whithorn; the burghs of barony are Newton Stewart, Glenluce, and Portpatrick..."
from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, edited by Francis H. Groome, 1885
Time for our hymn.
My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?
He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.
Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.
Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.
They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.
In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.
Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
Tomorrow we start our celebration of the Sacred Triduum.
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