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THOU COMPASSEST ME ON EVERY SIDE."

O GOD unseen, but not unknown,
Thine eye is ever fixed on me;
I dwell beneath thy secret throne,
Encompassed by thy Deity.

Throughout this universe of space
To nothing am I long allied,

For flight of time, and change of place,
My strongest, dearest bonds divide.

Parents I had, but where are they?

Friends whom I knew, I know no more; Companions once that cheered my way, Have dropt behind or gone before.

Now I am one amidst the crowd

Of life and action hurrying round;

Now left alone-for like a cloud

They came, they went, and are not found.

Even from myself sometimes I part,
Unconscious sleep is nightly death;
Yet surely by my bed thou art,

To prompt my pulse, inspire my breath.

Of all that I have done or said

How little can I now recal!

Forgotten things to me are dead;

With Thee they live, Thou know'st them all.

Thou hast been with me from the womb,
Witness to every conflict here;
Nor wilt Thou leave me at the tomb,
Before Thy bar I must appear.

The moment comes, when strength must fail, When health, and hope, and comfort flown, I must go down into the vale

And shade of death, with Thee alone.

Alone with Thee;-in that dread strife,
Uphold me through mine agony,
And gently be this dying life.

Exchanged for immortality.

Then, when the unbodied spirit lands
Where flesh and blood have never trod,
And in the unveiled presence stands

Of Thee, my Saviour, and my God ;

Be mine eternal portion this,

Since Thou wert always here with me,

That I may view Thy face in bliss,

And be for evermore with Thee.

"THERE REMAINETH A REST."

OH! where shall rest be found,
Rest for the weary soul?

"Twere vain the ocean-depths to sound,

Or pierce to either pole :
The world can never give

The bliss for which we sigh;
"Tis not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.

Beyond this vale of tears,
There is a life above,

Unmeasured by the flight of years;

And all that life is love :-
There is a death, whose pang
Outlasts the fleeting breath;

O'what eternal horrors hang
Around the second death!'

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Lord God of truth and grace,

Teach us that death to shun,

Lest we be banished from Thy face, And evermore undone :

Here would we end our quest;

Alone are found in Thee

The life of perfect love, the rest
Of immortality.

R

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