432.

S. M.

WATTS.

Heavenly Joy on Earth.

1 COME, we that love the Lord,
And let our joys be known:
Join in a song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne.

2 The sorrows of the mind

Be banished from the place: Religion never was designed To make our pleasures less.

3 The men of grace have found
Glory begun below;

Celestial fruits, on earthly ground,
From faith and hope may grow.

4 Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry:

We're marching through Immanuel's ground, To fairer worlds on high.

433. C. M.

Seeking true Joys.

C. WESLEY.

1 OUR joy is a created good;
How soon it fades away!

Fades, at the morning hour bestowed,
Before the noon of day.

2 Joy, by its violent excess,
To certain ruin tends,

And all our rapturous happiness
In hasty sorrow ends.

3 In vain doth earthly bliss afford
A momentary shade;

It rises like the prophet's gourd,
And withers o'er my head.

4 But of my Saviour's love possessed,
No more for earth I pine;
Secure of everlasting rest
Beneath the heavenly vine.

434. C. M.

WESLEY'S COL

The Saint's Rest.

1 LORD, I believe a rest remains,
To all thy people known;

A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,
And thou art loved alone;

2 A rest, where all our soul's desire
Is fixed on things above;

Where fear, and sin, and grief expire,
Cast out by perfect love.

3 O that I now the rest might know,
Believe and enter in!

Now, Father, now the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin!

4 Remove all hardness from my heart, All unbelief remove;

To me the rest of faith impart,
The sabbath of thy love.

342

LIFE, DEATH, AND FUTURITY.

435.

L. M.

DODDRIDGE.

The Wisdom of redeeming Time.

1 God of eternity! from thee

Did infant time his being draw:

Moments and days, and months and years, Revolve by thine unvaried law.

2 Silent and swift they glide away; Steady and strong the current flows, Lost in eternity's wide sea,

The boundless gulf from which it rose.

3 With it the thoughtless sons of men
Before the rapid stream are borne
On to their everlasting home,
Whence not one soul can e'er return.

4 Yet while the shore on either side
Presents a gaudy, flattering show,
We gaze, in fond amusement lost,
Nor think to what a world we go.

5 Great Source of wisdom! teach our hearts
To know the price of every hour,
That time may bear us on to joys
Beyond its measure and its power.

436.

L. M.

J. TAYLOR.

True Length of Life.

1 LIKE shadows gliding o'er the plain, Or clouds that roll successive on, Man's busy generations pass,

And while we gaze, their forms are gone.

2 "He lived, he died;" behold the sum, The abstract of the historian's page! Alike in God's all-seeing eye,

The infant's day, the patriarch's age.
3 O Father! in whose mighty hand
The boundless years and ages lie,
Teach us thy boon of life to prize,
And use the moments as they fly;

4 To crowd the narrow span of life
With wise designs and virtuous deeds;
So shall we wake from death's dark night,
To share the glory that succeeds.

We are Pilgrims on the Earth. Ps. 39.

1 O LET me, heavenly Lord, extend
My view to life's approaching end!
What are my days? a span their line;
And what my age compared with thine?

2 Our life advancing to its close,

While scarce its earliest dawn it knows,
Swift through an empty shade we run,
And vanity and man are one.

3 0, how thy chastisements impair
The human form, however fair!
How frail the strongest frame we see,
If thou its mortal doom decree!

4 As when the fretting moths consume
The labor of the curious loom,
The texture fails, the dyes decay,
And all its lustre fades away.

5 God of my fathers! here, as they,
I walk the pilgrim of a day;

A transient guest, thy works admire,
And instant to my home retire.

6 O spare me, Lord, awhile, O spare,
And nature's failing strength repair,
Ere, life's short circuit wandered o'er,
I perish, and am seen no more.

438. L. M.

SPIRIT OF THE PSALMS.

Numbering our Days. Ps. 39.

1 THE term of life assigned to man
Is transient as a passing shade;
Its longest period is a span,
And in the bud his honors fade.

2 He walks but in an empty show,
Vexed and disquieted in vain :
To unknown heirs his wealth must flow,
And he to dust return again.

3 So let us number, then, our days,
That we may know how frail we are;
Call to remembrance all our ways,
And for eternity prepare.