Baptist Pseudo-Dionysians?

The composer of this hymn, Walter C. Smith, was a poet and minister in the Free Church of Scotland. While in the US we would associate the Free Church of Scotland more with Presbyterians, this is a hymn commonly sung in Baptist Churches. In fact I sang it enough growing up to know that it is hymn #6 in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal.

The funny thing about it is how "philosophical" it sounds. It's really a work of contemplative theology, in the manner of a theologian like Pseudo-Dionysius. In fact, it can get downright existential in a way that sounds foreign to evangelicals: "we wither and perish/but not changeth thee." But I sang it every few weeks or so growing up in a Baptist church, and no one thought it was out of place or odd. It has a pretty tune, but I think people were understanding the words as well.

Baptists don't seem to have much of a "contemplative" tradition, except in their hymns. Baptist (and, in a broader grouping, "evangelical") congregations are typically described in academic literature as focused on "action" in the form of evangelism or missions outreach rather than spending time in contemplative prayer or mysticism. But an earnest Baptist hymn sing or Praise and Worship service, and the fact that these are considered by Baptists to be essential to what it means to do church, says something about "mystical" elements in Baptist/evangelical life that we may tend to pass over.