IME is earnest, passing by;
Death is earnest, drawing nigh:
Sinner, wilt thou trifling be?
Time and death appeal to thee.
2 Life is earnest: when 'tis o'er,
Thou returnest never more.
Soon to meet eternity,
Wilt thou never serious be?
3 God is earnest: kneel and pray,
Ere thy season pass away;
Ere He set His judgment throne ;
Ere the day of grace be gone.
4 Christ is earnest, bids thee come;
Paid, thy spirit's priceless sum ;
Wilt thou spurn thy Saviour's love,
Pleading with thee from above?
5 O be earnest, do not stay;
Thou mayest perish e'en to-day.
Rise, thou lost one, rise and flee !
Lo! thy Saviour waits for thee.
ASS a few swiftly-fleeting years,
PASS
And all that now in bodies live,
Shall quit, like me, the vale of tears,
Their righteous sentence to receive.
2 But all, before they hence remove,
May mansions for themselves prepare
In that eternal house above;
And, O my God, shall I be there !
YOD of my life preserved by grace,
Like Moses' bush amidst the fire!
Teach me to count aright my days,
With wisdom pure my heart inspire.
2 In number as my days decrease,
In value, Lord, I know they rise;
And every moment makes them less,
And brings me nearer to the skies;
3 If taught by Thee my hours to' improve,
My hours I on account receive,
And live to win Thy precious love,
And only to Thy glory live.
4 Thy Spirit now if Thou infuse,
My latter end I wisely weigh,
No more the' important moments lose,
No more neglect to watch and pray!
5 This instant now I cease from sin,
This instant now I turn to Thee,
And trust Thy blood to make me clean
From all, from all impurity.
6 Stirr'd up to seek the God unknown, My soul awakes to righteousness, And strives, and pants, and wrestles on, For power to live and die in peace.
THIS is the field-the world below, In which the sowers came to sow,— Jesus the wheat, Satan the tares; For so the word of truth declares; And soon the reaping-time will come, And angels shout the harvest home. 2 Most awful truth!--and is it so ? Must all the world the harvest know? Is every man the wheat or tare? Then for the harvest, O prepare!
3 To love my sins-a saint to appear-
To grow with wheat-and be a tare,
May serve me whilst on earth below,
Where tares and wheat together grow:
But soon, &c.
4 But all who truly righteous be,
Their Father's kingdom then shall see ;
Shine like the sun for ever there :
He that hath ears, then let him hear;
For soon, &c.
ERUSALEM, Jerusalem!
Enthroned once on high,
Thou favoured home of God on earth,
Thou heaven below the sky!
Now brought to bondage with thy sons,
A curse and grief to see;
Jerusalem, Jerusalem !
Our tears shall flow for thee.
2 Oh! hadst thou known thy day of grace,
And flocked beneath the wing
Of Him who called thee lovingly,
Thine own anointed King:
Then had the tribes of all the world
Gone up thy pomp to see,
And glory dwelt within thy gates,
And all thy sons been free.
3 "And who art thou that mournest me?"
Jerusalem may say,
"And fear'st not rather that thyself
May prove a cast away!"
I am a dried and abject branch,
My place is given to thee;
But woe to every barren graft
Of thy wild olive tree!
4 "Our day of grace is sunk in night,
Our time of mercy spent,
For heavy was my children's crime,
And strange their punishment:
Yet gaze not idly on our fall,
But, sinner, warned be;
Who spared not His chosen seed,
May send His wrath on thee!
5 "Our day of grace is sunk in night,
Thy noon is in its prime ;
Oh, turn and seek thy Saviour's face
In this accepted time!
So, Gentile, may Jerusalem
A lesson prove to thee,
And in the new Jerusalem
Thy home for ever be !"
GOD! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
2 Under the shadow of Thy throne,
Still may we dwell secure ;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
3 Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
4 A thousand ages, in Thy sight,
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night,
Before the rising sun.
5 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their cares and fears,
Are carried downward by the flood,
And lost in following years.
6 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
7 O God! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our perpetual home.
THEE we adore, Eternal Name!
And humbly own to Thee,
How feeble is our mortal frame,
What dying worms we be !
2 Our wasting lives grow shorter still,
As days and months increase;
And every beating pulse we tell
Leaves but the number less.
3 The year rolls round, and steals away.
The breath that first it gave ;
Whate'er we do, where'er we be,
We're travelling to the grave.
4 Dangers stand thick through all the ground, To push us to the tomb ;
And fierce diseases wait around,
To hurry mortals home.
5 Great God! on what a slender thread
Hang everlasting things!
The' eternal states of all the dead
Upon life's feeble strings!
6 Infinite joy, or endless woe,
Attends on every breath;
And yet how unconcerned we go
Upon the brink of death!
7 Waken, O Lord, our drowsy sense,
To walk this dangerous road!
And if our souls be hurried hence,
May they be found with God.
ND am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
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