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HYMNS

CONCERNING MAN.

HIS SPIRITUAL AND IMMORTAL

NATURE

453 Gen. ii. 7. C. M. SIR J. E. SMITH.

DORE, my soul, that awful Name,
To which the angels bow,

By which the worlds from nothing came,
The heaven of heavens, and thou.

2 The God who sits enthron'd above
Thy breath of life has given:
His voice in thunder, and in love,
Calls thee from earth to heaven.

3 This speck of earth is not thy home,
Nor mortal joys thine end:
Beyond the starry-spangled dome
Thy boundless views extend.

4 Why fondly pluck the withering flowers
That only deck thy tomb,

While amaranthine wreaths and bowers
For thee immortal bloom?

5 Resign thy joys and hopes to God;
Cast flesh and sin away;
Pursue the path thy Saviour trod,
And rise to endless day.

454 Eccles. ix. 10. 8.7. LONGFELLOW.

1 ELL me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream,”

For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. 2 Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal; "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul. 3 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.

4 Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

5 Lives of good men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time:
6 Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
7 Let us then be up and doing,

Nor our onward course abate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

455

1

Mark viii. 36, 37. C. M. MONTGOMERY.

HAT is the thing of greatest price,
The whole creation round?

That which was lost in Paradise;
That which in Christ is found :-

2 The soul of man,-Jehovah's breath,-
That keeps two worlds at strife;
Hell moves beneath to work its death,
Heaven stoops to give it life.

3 God to redeem it did not spare
His well-beloved Son;

Jesus, to save it, deigned to bear
The sins of all in one.

4 And is this treasure borne below
In earthen vessels frail?

Can none its utmost value know,
Till flesh and spirit fail?

5 Then let us gather round the cross,
That knowledge to obtain,
Not by the soul's eternal loss,
But everlasting gain.

456

10

Prov. xix. 2. D.L.M. LEEDS SEL.

F all that live, and move, and breathe,
Man only rises o'er his birth;

He looks above, around, beneath,

At once the heir of heaven and earth:
Beyond the grave, with hope sublime,
Destined a nobler course to run,
In his career the end of time
Is but eternity begun.

2 What guides him in his high pursuit,
Opens, illumines, cheers his way,
Discerns the immortal from the brute,
God's image from the mould of clay?
"Tis knowledge :-knowledge to the soul
Is power, and liberty, and peace;
And while celestial ages roll,

The joys of knowledge shall increase.

3 Hail to the glorious plan, that spreads
This light with universal beams,
And through the human desert leads
Truth's living, pure, perpetual streams:
-Behold, a new crcation rise,
New spirit breathed into a clod,
Whene'er the voice of Wisdom cries,
Man, know thyself, and fear thy God.

457 Psalm cxvi. 7. 113th M. LEEDS SEL.

1 PRING up, my soul, with ardent flight,
Nor let this earth delude my sight
With glittering trifles gay and vain :
Wisdom divine directs thy view
To objects ever grand and new,

And faith displays the shining train.

2 Be dead, my hopes, to all below, Nor let unbounded torrents flow,

When mourning o'er my withered joys:
So this deceitful world is known;
Possessed, I call it not my own,
Nor glory in its painted toys.

3 The empty pageant rolls along;
The giddy, unexperienced throng
Pursue it with enchanted eyes;
It passes in swift march away,
Still more and more its charms decay,
Till the last gaudy colour dies.

4 My God, to Thee my soul shall turn;
For Thee my noblest passions burn,
And drink in bliss from Thee alone:
I fix on that unchanging state
Where never-fading pleasures wait,
Fresh springing round Thy radiant
throne.

458 Micah il. 10. S. M. MONTGOMERY.

1

WHERE shall rest be found,
Rest for the weary soul?

"Twere vain the ocean's depths to sound, Or pierce to either pole.

2 The world can never give

3

The bliss for which we sigh;
"Tis not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.

Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,

Unmeasured by the flight of years,
And all that life is love.

4 Here would we end our quest;
Alone are found in Thee,

The life of perfect love, the rest
Of immortality.

459

Mark xii. 17. C. M.

WATTS.

1 E And Lord of all below;

TERNAL Sovereign of the sky

We mortals to Thy Majesty,

Our first obedience owe.

2 Let Cæsar's due be ever paid
To Cæsar and his throne;
But consciences and souls were made,
To be the Lord's alone.

HIS LIFE AND DEATH.

460 Eccles. ix. 5.

1

L. M.

WATTS.

LIFE is the time to serve the Lord,

The time to ensure the great reward; And while the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return.

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