4 While we weep as Jesus wept,
Thou shalt sleep as Jesus slept:
With thy Saviour thou shalt rest,
Crowned, and glorified and blest.
Peaceful Death of the Righteous.
1 I LOOKED upon the righteous man,
And saw his parting breath,
Without a struggle or a sigh,
Serenely yield to death:
There was no anguish on his brow,
Nor terror in his eye;
The spoiler aimed a fatal dart,
But lost the victory.
2 I looked upon the righteous man
And heard the holy prayer
Which rose above that breathless form,
To soothe the mourners' care,
And felt how precious was the gift
He to his loved ones gave,-
The stainless memory of the just,
The wealth beyond the grave.
3 I looked upon the righteous man;
And all our earthly trust
Of pleasure, vanity, or pride,
Seemed lighter than the duct,
Compared with his celestial gain,-
A home above the sky:
O grant us, Lord, his life to live,
That we like him may die.
1 FAREWELL! what power of words can tell
The sorrows of a last farewell,
When, standing by the mournful bier,
We mingle with our prayers a tear!
2 When memory tells of days gone by,
Of blighted hope and vanished joy:
Bright hopes that withered like a flower,
Cut down and faded in an hour.
3 Give forth thy chime, thou solemn bell,
Thou grave, unfold thy marble cell;
Oh earth! receive upon thy breast
The weary trav'ller to his rest.
4 Oh God, extend thy arms of love,
A spirit seeketh thee above!
Ye heav'nly palaces unclose,
Receive the weary to repose!
1 As, bowed by sudden storms, the rose
Sinks on the garden's breast,
Down to the grave our brother goes,
In silence there to rest.
2 No more with us his tuneful voice
The hymn of praise shall swell,
No more his cheerful heart rejoice
When peals the Sabbath bell.
3 Yet, if, in yonder cloudless sphere
Amid a sinless throng,
He utters in his Saviour's ear
The everlasting song,--
4 No more we 'll mourn the absent friend
But lift our earnest prayer,
And daily every effort bend
To rise and join him there.
The Re-union of Friends after Death.
1 BLEST be the hour when friends shall meet,
Shall meet to part no more,
And with celestial welcome greet,
On an immortal shore.
2 Sweet hope, deep cherished, not in vain,
Now art thou richly crowned!
All that was dead revives again;
All that was lost is found!
3 The parent eyes his long-lost child;
Brothers on brothers gaze:
The tear of resignation mild
Is changed to joy and praise.
4 And while remembrance, lingering still,
Draws joy from sorrowing hours;
New prospects rise, new pleasures fill
The soul's capacious powers.
5 Their Father fans their generous flame,
And looks complacent down;
The smile that owns their filial claim
Is their immortal crown.
"Not inst, but gone before."
1 SAY, why should friendship grieve for those Who safe arrive on Canaan's shore?
Released from al. their hurtful foes,
They are not lost-but gone before.
2 How many painful days on earth
Their fainting spirits numbered o'er!
Now they enjoy a heavenly birth;
They are not lost-but gone before.
3 Dear is the spot where Christians sleep,
And sweet the strain which angels our
O why should we in anguish weep?
They are not lost
1 As the sweet flower that scents the morn,
But withers in the rising day,
Thus lovely was this infant's dawn,
Thus swiftly fled its life away.
2 It died ere its expanding soul
Had ever burnt with wrong desires,
Had ever spurned at Heaven's control,
Or ever quenched its sacred fires.
3 Yet the sad hour that took the boy
Perhaps has spared a heavier doom ̧ -
Snatched him from scenes of guilty joy,
Or from the pangs of ills to come.
4 He died to sin; he died to care;
But for a moment felt the rod;
Then, rising on the viewless air,
Spread his light wings, and soared to God
1 So fades the lovely, blooming flower,
Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
So soon our transient comforts fly,
And pleasure only blooms to die.
2 Is there no kind, no healing art,
To soothe the anguish of the heart?
Spirit of grace, be ever nigh:
Thy comforts are not made to die.
Let gentle patience smile on pain,
Till dying hope revives again;
Hope wipes the tear from sorrow's eye
And faith points upward to the sky.
1 LIFE is a span, —a fleeting hour:
How soon the vapor flies!
Man is a tender, transient flower,
That e'en in blooming dies.
2 The once-loved form, now cold and dead,
Each mournful thought employs;
And nature weeps, her comforts fled.
And withered all her joys.
3 Hope looks beyond the bounds of time,
When what we now deplore
Shall rise in full, immortal prime,
And bloom to fade no more.
4 Cease, then, fond nature, cease thy tears;
Thy Saviour dwells on high;
There everlasting spring appears
There joy shall never die.
7s. & 6s. M.
Children in Heaven.
1 IN the broad fields of heaven,
In the immortal bowers,
By life's clear rive" dwelling,
Amid undying flowers,-
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