Zion’s Bank

I recently came across the poem below. I searched for it after reading a story in which someone sang a song beginning, “I have a never-failing Bank.” I had never heard of it before. I looked it up. I found it. At Hymnary.Org the words are credited to “A. McKenzie.” I did not find a reliable source to verify McKenzie as the author. None of the song and hymn books I looked at gave the writer of the words. A video on YouTube says it was written by Rev’d A. McKenzie in 1869. However, that may be in reference to the tune. The words can be found published at least as early as 1858 in The Chorus: or, a Collection of Choruses and Hymns, Selected and Original, Adapted especially to the Class-room, and to Meetings for Prayer and Christian conference (A. S. Jenks, D. Gilkey, editors. Philadelphia, PA: 1858). There, 15 stanzas create “The Firm Bank,” Number 34 (pp. 237-239) in the hymn section of this words-only book.

Five stanzas of the hymn with music is called Zion’s Bank in Songs of Redemption (No. 81). The music there was an arranged by William J. Kirkpatrick, with the melody said to be “As sung by Rev. G. W. Anderson.” It also adds a chorus, “For O! there is plenty, plenty, plenty; For O! there is plenty, in Father’s Bank above.”

There are some online sites crediting the verses to Rowland Hill “at a time when public credit in Great Britain was shaken by the failure of several banks.” This evidently means Rowland Hill (1745 –1833) the English preacher at Surrey Chapel. Whether true of not, it has a long history, at least back to the 1840s. For example, the Geneva (New York) Courier, Tuesday, June 1842, page 1, prints 19 stanzas of “The Firm Bank” with this introduction: “Supposed to have been written by the Rev. Rowland Hill, at a time when public credit in Great Britain was shook by the failure of several banks.” The credit to Hill was quite consistent in newspapers; though I found a few times it was credited to John Newton, and at least once printed under the title “John Newton’s Bank”! This could suggest an attempt to attach an anonymous hymn to a famous person. The poetry might have several sources. It is certainly most likely that the poem originated in England, since stanza two mentions “a groat,” an English coin worth four pence. Some printings have a specific mention of England’s banks: “Should all the banks in Britain break, The Bank of England smash, Bring your notes to Zion’s Bank, you’ll surely have your cash.”

The poem is quaint and unusual, not suitable for a church hymn. Nevertheless, the opening line “I have a never-failing Bank” rings quite true and comforting to the believer! We should trust eternal God above all the systems of this temporal world.

Zion’s Bank, or The Bank Heaven. C. M.
The Firm Bank.

1. I have a never-failing Bank,
A more than golden store;
No earthly bank is half so rich,
How can I then be poor?

2. ’Tis when my stock is spent and gone
And I without a groat,
I’m glad to hasten to my bank
And beg a little note.

3. Sometimes my Banker, smiling, says,
“Why don’t you oft’ner come?
And when you draw a little note,
Why not a larger sum?

4. “Why live so niggardly and poor?
Your bank contains a plenty.
Why come and take a one-pound note,
When you might have a twenty?

5. “Yea, twenty thousand ten times told
Is but a trifling sum
To what your Father has laid up
Secure in Christ, his Son.”

6. Since, then, my Banker is so rich,
I have no cause to borrow;
I’ll live upon my cash to-day,
And draw again to-morrow.

7. I’ve been a thousand times before,
And never was rejected;
Sometimes my Banker gives me more
Than asked for or expected.

8. I know my Bank will never break—
No, it can never fail,
The firm—three persons in one God,
Jehovah—Lord of all.

9. And if you have but one small note,
Fear not to bring it in;
Come boldly to the Bank of Grace;
The Banker is within.

10. All forgèd notes will be refused;
Man-merits are rejected;
There not a single note will pass
That God has not accepted.

11. Tho’ thousand ransomed souls may say,
They have no notes at all—
Because they feel the plagues of sin,
So ruined by the fall.

12. This Bank is full of precious notes,
All signed and sealed and free,
Though many doubting souls may say,
“There is not one for me.”

13. The leper had a little note—
“Lord, if thou wilt thou can”;
The Banker cashed this little note,
And healed the sickly man.

14. We read of one young man, indeed,
Whose riches did abound;
But in this Banker’s book of grace
This man was never found.

15. But see the wretched, dying thief
Hang by the Banker’s side;
He cried, “Dear Lord, remember me”;
He got his cash and died.