5 While sinners in despair shall call,
"Rocks, hide us! mountains, on us fall!"
The saints, ascending from the tomb,
Shall sing for joy, "The Lord is come!"

Bishop Heber, 1811.

587 G

8s & 75, 8s, 8s, & 7s.

REAT God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created:

The Judge of man I see appear,

On clouds of glory seated.

The trumpet sounds, the graves restore
The dead which they contained before ;
Prepare, my soul, to meet Him !

2 The dead in Christ shall first arise

And greet the Archangel's warning,
To meet the Saviour in the skies
On this auspicious morning:
No gloomy fears their souls dismay,
His presence sheds eternal day

On those prepared to meet Him.

3 Far over space, to distant spheres,
The lightnings are prevailing:
The ungodly rise and all their tears
And sighs are unavailing :

The day of grace is past and gone;
They shake before the Judge's throne,
All unprepared to meet Him.

4 Stay, fancy, stay, and close thy wings,
Repress thy flight too daring!

One wondrous sight my comfort brings,
The Judge my nature wearing.

Beneath His cross I view the day

When heaven and earth shall pass away,

And thus prepare to meet Him.

William Bengo Collyer, 1812.

(First stanza Anon., from Bartholomew Ringwaldt, 1550.)

C. M.

588 THAT awful day will surely come,

The appointed hour make haste,
When I must stand before my Judge,
And pass the solemn test.

2 Thou lovely Chief of all my joys,
Thou Sovereign of my heart!
How could I bear to hear Thy voice
Pronounce the sound, "Depart!"
3 O wretched state of deep despair!
To see my God remove,

And fix my doleful station where
I must not taste His love!

4 Jesus, I throw my arms around,
And hang upon Thy breast:
Without a gracious smile from Thee,
My spirit cannot rest.

5 O tell me that my worthless name
Is graven on Thy hands!

Show me some promise in Thy book,
Where my salvation stands.

6 Give me one kind, assuring word,
To sink my fears again;
And cheerfully my soul shall wait

Her threescore years and ten.

Isaac Watts, 1709.

589

L

8s, 7s, & 4s.

O! He comes, with clouds descending,

Once for favored sinners slain :

Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah!

God appears, on earth to reign!

2 Every eye shall now behold Him,
Robed in dreadful majesty ;

Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced, and nailed Him to the Tree,
Deeply wailing,

Shall the true Messiah see.

3 Every island, sea, and mountain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away;
All who hate Him must, confounded,
Hear the trump proclaim the day;
Come to judgment !

Come to judgment, come away!

4 Now Redemption, long expected,
See in solemn pomp appear!
All His saints, by man rejected,
Now shall meet Him in the air:
Hallelujah!

See the day of God appear!

5 Answer Thine own Bride and Spirit;
Hasten, Lord, the general doom;
The new heaven and earth to inherit
Take Thy pining exiles home :
All creation

Travails, groans, and bids Thee come!

6 Yea, Amen! let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne:
Saviour, take the power and glory;
Claim the kingdom for Thine own:
O come quickly,

Everlasting God, come down!

Variation by Martin Madan, 1760. From Charles Wesley and John Cennick.

S. M.

590 THOU Judge of quick and dead,

Before whose bar severe,

With holy joy, or guilty dread,
We all shall soon appear:

2 Our cautioned souls prepare
For that tremendous day;

And fill us now with watchful care,
And stir us up to pray :

3 To pray, and wait the hour,

That awful hour unknown,

When, robed in majesty and power,
Thou shalt from heaven come down,

4 The immortal Son of Man,
To judge the human race,

With all Thy Father's dazzling train,
With all Thy glorious grace.

5 O may we thus be found

Obedient to His word,

Attentive to the trumpet's sound,
And looking for our Lord!

6 O may we thus insure

Our lot among the blest;

And watch a moment to secure

An everlasting rest.

C. Wesley, 1749.

L. M.

591 THAT day of wrath! that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away!

What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?

2 When, shriveling like a parchéd scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead!

3 O, on that day — that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be Thou the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away!

Sir Walter Scott, 1805; translated from Dies Ira.

C. M.

592 WHEN, rising from the bed of death,

O'erwhelmed with guilt and fear,

I see my Maker face to face,

O how shall I appear!

2 If now, while pardon may be found,
And mercy may be sought,

My heart with inward horror shrinks,
And trembles at the thought;