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.
2 Here holy thoughts a light have shed From many a radiant face,
And prayers of tender hope have spread A perfume through the place.
3 And anxious hearts have pondered here The mystery of life,
And prayed the Eternal Spirit clear Their doubts and aid their strife.
4 From humble tenements around Came up the pensive train, And in the church a blessing found, Which filled their homes again.
5 They live with God, their homes are dust; But here their children pray, And, in this fleeting lifetime, trust To find the narrow way.
1 GREAT God! let all our tuneful powers Awake and sing thy mighty name; Thy hand rolls on our circling hours, The hand from which our being came.
2 Seasons and moons, revolving round In beauteous order, speak thy praise; And years, with smiling mercy crowned, To thee successive honors raise.
3 Each changing season on our souls Its sweetest, kindest influence sheds; And every period, as it rolls,
Showers countless blessings on our heads.
4 Our lives, our health, our friends, we owe All to thy vast, unbounded love; Ten thousand precious gifts below, And hope of nobler joys above.
1 THE winter is over and gone,
The thrush whistles sweet on the spray, The turtle breathes forth her soft moan, The lark mounts and warbles away.
2 Shall every creature around Their voices in concert unite, And I, the most favored, be found In praising to take less delight?
3 Awake, then, my harp, and my lute! Sweet organs, your notes softly swell! No longer my lips shall be mute, The Saviour's high praises to tell.
4 His love in my heart shed abroad, My graces shall bloom as the spring; This temple, his Spirit's abode; My joy as my duty to sing.
1 WHEN verdure clothes the fertile vale, And blossoms deck the spray,
And fragrance breathes in every gale, How sweet the vernal day!
2 Hark! how the feathered warblers sing! 'Tis Nature's cheerful voice; Soft music hails the lovely spring, And woods and fields rejoice.
3 Earth and her thousand voices give Their thousand notes of praise; And all, that by his mercy live, To God their offering raise.
4 O God of nature and of grace, Thy heavenly gifts impart; Then shall my meditation trace Spring, blooming in my heart.
5 Inspired to praise, I then shall join Glad Nature's cheerful song, And love and gratitude divine Attune my joyful tongue.
THE leaves around me falling Are preaching of decay; The hollow winds are calling, "Come, pilgrim, come away" The day, in night declining, Says I must too decline; The year its bloom resigning, Its lot foreshadows mine.
2 The light my path surrounding, The loves to which I cling, The hopes within me bounding, The joys that round me wing, -
All, all, like stars at even, Just gleam and shoot away, Pass on before to heaven, And chide at my delay.
3 The friends gone there before me Are calling from on high, And happy angels o'er me Tempt sweetly to the sky: "Why wait," they say, "and wither, 'Mid scenes of death and sin ? O rise to glory, hither,
And find true life begin."
1 SEE the leaves around us falling, Dry and withered to the ground, Thus to thoughtless mortals calling, In a sad and solemn sound:
2 "Sons of Adam, (once in Eden, Where, like us, he blighted fell,) Hear the lesson we are reading; Mark the awful truth we tell.
3 "Youth, on length of days presuming, Who the paths of pleasure tread; View us, late in beauty blooming, Numbered now among the dead.
4 "What though yet no losses grieve you, Gay with health and many a grace; Let not cloudless skies deceive you : Summer gives to autumn place.
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