5 Great God! to thee we consecrate Our voices and our skill; We bid the pealing organ wait To speak alone thy will.
6 O teach its rich and swelling notes To lift our souls on high;
And while the music round us floats, Let earth-born passion die.
1 SURE, to the mansions of the blest When infant innocence ascends, Some angel brighter than the rest The spotless spirit's flight attends.
2 On wings of ecstasy they rise, Beyond where worlds material roll, Till some fair sister of the skies Receives the unpolluted soul.
3 There, at the Almighty Father's hand, Nearest the throne of living light, The choirs of infant seraphs stand, And dazzling shine, where all are bright.
4 That inextinguishable beam, With dust united at our birth, Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam, The more it lingers upon earth.
5 Closed in this dark abode of clay, The stream of glory faintly burns, Nor unobscured the lucid ray To its own native fount returns.
6 But when the Lord of mortal breath Decrees his bounty to resume,
And points the silent shaft of death, Which speeds an infant to the tomb,
7 No passion fierce, no low desire,
Has quenched the radiance of the flame; Back to its God the living fire Returns, unsullied, as it came.
The Spread of the Gospel.
1 THE morning light is breaking, The darkness disappears, The sons of earth are waking To penitential tears;
Each breeze that sweeps the ocean Brings tidings from afar,
Of nations in commotion, Prepared for Zion's war.
2 Rich dews of grace come o'er us, In many a gentle shower, And brighter scenes before us Are opening every hour; Each cry to heaven going Abundant answers brings, And heavenly gales are blowing, With peace upon their wings.
3 Blest river of salvation,
Pursue thy onward way; Flow thou to every nation, Nor in thy richness stay:
Stay not, till all the lowly Triumphant reach their home; Stay not, till all the holy Proclaim the Lord has come.
1 FROM Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand, From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver
Their land from error's chain.
2 What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,- Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile? In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown; The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
3 Shall we, whose souls are lighted By wisdom from on high, Shall we to mnen benighted The lamp of life deny? Salvation! O salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim, Till earth's remotest nation Has learnt Messiah's name.
1 HERE to the High and Holy One Our fathers early reared A house of prayer, a lowly one, Yet long to them endeared By hours of sweet communion Held with their covenant God, As oft, in sacred union,
His hallowed courts they trod.
2 Gone are the pious multitudes That here kept holy time, In other courts assembled now For worship more sublime. Their children, we are waiting In meekness, Lord, thy call; Thy love still celebrating,
Our hope, our trust, our all.
3 These time-worn walls, the resting-place So oft from earthly cares To righteous souls now perfected, We leave with thanks and prayers;
With thanks, for every blessing Vouchsafed through all the past, With prayers, thy throne addressing For guidance to the last.
4 Though from this house, so long beloved, We part with sadness now,
Yet here we trust with gladness soon In fairer courts to bow:
So when our souls forsaking These bodies, fallen and pale, In brighter forms awaking, With joy the change shall hail.
1 THE perfect world, by Adam trod, Was the first temple,-built by God; His fiat laid the corner-stone,
And heaved its pillars one by one.
2 He hung its starry roof on high, — The broad, illimitable sky;
He spread its pavement green and bright, And curtained it with morning light.
3 The mountains in their places stood,- The sea, the sky, and "all was good"; And, when its first pure praises rang, The "morning stars together sang."
4 Lord! 't is not ours to make the sea, And earth, and sky a house for thee; But in thy sight our offering stands, A humbler temple, "made with hands."
The House our Fathers built to God.
1 We love the venerable house
Our fathers built to God;
In heaven are kept their grateful vows, Their dust endears the sod.
« AnteriorContinua » |