Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest:
Oh! 'tis not in grief to harm me,
While thy love is left to me;
Oh! 't were not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with thee.
5 Haste thee on, from grace to glory,
Armed by faith and winged by prayer: Heaven's eternal day 's before thee, God's own hand shall guide thee there: Soon shall close thy earthly mission, Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days; Hope shall change to glad fruition, Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.
Y days, my weeks, my months, my
Fly rapid as the whirling spheres
Around the steady pole;
Time like the tide its motion keeps,
And I must launch through boundless deeps,
Where endless ages roll.
2 The grave is near the cradle seen,
How swift the moments pass between,
And whisper as they fly:
Unthinking man, remember this,
Though fond of sublunary bliss,
That you must groan and die."
3 How great the bliss, how great the wo Hangs on this inch of time below,
On this precarious breath!
The Lord of nature only knows,
Whether another year shall close,
Ere I expire in death.
4 But will my soul be then extinct,
And cease to live, and cease to think 7
It cannot, cannot be ;
No, my immortal cannot die ;
What wilt thou do, or whither fly,
When death shall set thee free?
3 Will mercy then her arms extend,
Will Jesus be thy guardian friend?
And heaven thy dwelling place?
Or shall insulting fiends appear,
To drag thee down to dark despair,
Below the reach of grace?
5 A heaven or hell, and these alone,
Beyond the present life are known,
There is no middle state;
To-day attend the call divine,
To-morrow may be none of thine,
Or it may be too late.
OW tedious and tasteless the hours,
When Jesus no longer I see,
Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers,
Have lost all their sweetness to me.
The midsummer sun shines but dim;
The fields strive in vain to look gay;
But when I am happy in him,
December's as pleasant as May.
2 His name yields the richest perfume,
And sweeter than music his voice,
His presence disperses my gloom,
And makes all within me rejoice.
I should, were he always thus nigh,
Have nothing to wish or to fear,
No mortal so happy as I;
My summer would last all the year.
3 Content with beholding his face,
My all to his pleasure resign'd,
No changes of season or place,
Would make any change in my mind;
While blest with a sense of his love,
A palace a toy would appear,
And prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.
4 Dear Lord, if indeed I am thine,
If thou art my sun and my song,
Say why do I languish and pine,
And why are my winters so long?
O drive these dark clouds from my sky,
Thy soul-cheering presence restore,
O take me to thee upon high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.
COULD my soul this morning rise,
And feel that life that never dies
I'd praise that hand with all my powers,
That guarded my unguarded hours.
2 'Tis he who gives me life divine,
In him eternal joys are mine;
Then rouse, my soul, bid sloth adieu,
Thy Jesus love and him pursue.
3 Haste on to that immortal shore,
Where night and sleep are known no more;
There shall I soon in glory rise,
With seraphs in a sweet surprise.
4 Then shall I raise a morning song,
With all the vast angelic throng;
Singing in everlasting peace,
My morning song shall never cease.
OW happy is the pilgrim's lot,
HOW happy is the
How free from every anxious thought,
From worldly hope and fear!
Confin'd to neither court nor cell,
His soul disdains on earth to dwell;
He only sojourns here.
2 This happiness in part is mine;
Already sav'd from low design,—
From every creature-love-
Bless'd with the scorn of finite good,
My soul is lightened of its load,
And seeks the things above.
3 The things eternal I pursue,
And happiness beyond the view
Of those who basely pant
For things by nature felt and seen,
Their honors, wealth, and pleasures mean,
I neither have nor want.
4 Nothing on earth I call my own:
A stranger to the world unknown,
I all their goods despise;
I trample on their whole delight,
And seek a city out of sight,-
A city in the skies.
5 There is my house and portion fair;
My treasure and my heart are there,
And my abiding home;
For me my elder brethren stay,
And angels beckon me away,
And Jesus bids me come.
THOU in whose presence
My soul takes delight,
On whom in affliction I call;
My comfort by day,
And my song in the night,
My hope, my salvation and all.
2 Where dost thou at noon-tide
Resort with thy sheep,
To feed in the pastures of love?
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