2 Followed by their works they go
Where their Head is gone before;
Reconciled by grace below,

Grace hath opened mercy's door;
Justified through faith alone,

Here they knew their sins forgiven;
Here they laid their burden down,
Hallowed and made meet for heaven.

3 Who can now lament the lot

Of a saint in Christ deceased?
Let the world, who know us not,
Call us hopeless and unblest:
When from flesh the spirit freed
Hastens homeward to return,
Mortals cry,
"A man is dead!"

Angels sing, "A child is born! "

662

C. M.

WATTS.

"Blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord."

1 HEAR what the voice from heaven proclaims

-

For all the pious dead:
Sweet is the savor of their names,

And soft their sleeping bed.

2 They die in Jesus, and are blessed;
How kind their slumbers are!
From sufferings and from sins released,
And freed from every snare.

3 Far from this world of toil and strife
They're present with the Lord;
The labors of their mortal life

End in a large reward.

663

L. M.

The Young cut off in their Prime.

S. WESLEY.

1 THE morning flowers display their sweets,
And, gay, their silken leaves unfold,
As careless of the noontide heats
As fearless of the evening cold.

2 Nipped by the wind's untimely blast,
Parched by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,

The short-lived beauties die away.

3 So blooms the human face divine,

When youth its pride of beauty shows; Fairer than spring the colors shine, And sweeter than the virgin rose.

4 Or worn by slowly-rolling years, Or broke by sickness in a day, The fading glory disappears,

The short-lived beauties die away.

5 Yet these, new rising from the tomb, With lustre brighter far shall shine, Revive with ever-during bloom,

Safe from diseases and decline.

6 Let sickness blast, let death devour,

If heaven must recompense our pains:
Perish the grass, and fade the flower,
If firm the word of God remains.

664

L. M.

On the Death of a Child.

MRS. STEELE.

1 SO fades the lovely, blooming flower,
Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
So soon our transient comforts fly,
And pleasure only blooms to die.

2 Is there no kind, no lenient art
To heal the anguish of the heart?
To ease the heavy load of care,
Which nature must, but cannot, bear?
3 Can reason's dictates be obeyed?
Too weak, alas, her strongest aid!
O, let Religion then be nigh;
Her comforts were not made to die.

4 Her powerful aid supports the soul,
And nature owns her kind control;
While she unfolds the sacred page,
Our fiercest griefs resign their rage.

5 Then gentle patience smiles on pain,
And dying hope revives again;

Hope wipes the tear from sorrow's eye,
And faith points upward to the sky.

665

L. M.

Death of Children.

J. Q. ADAMS.

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.

666

7s & 6s M.

Adieu to a departed Christian Friend.

C. WESLEY.

1 FAREWELL, thou once a mortal,
Our poor, afflicted friend;

Go, pass the heavenly portal,
To God, thy glorious end.

2 The Author of thy being
Hath summoned thee away;
And faith is lost in seeing,
And night in endless day.

3 With those that went before thee,
The saints of ancient days,
Who shine in sacred story,

Thy soul hath found its place.

4 Acquainted with their sadness,
While in the weeping vale,
Thou sharest now their gladness,
And joys that never fail.

5 No loss of friends shall grieve thee;
we alone must bear ;

That

They cannot, cannot leave thee,
Thy kind companions there.

6 From all thy care and sorrow
Thou art escaped to-day;
And we shall mount to-morrow,
And soar to thee away.

667

C. M.

WATTS.

The Death and Burial of a Saint.

1 WHY do we mourn departing friends, Or shake at death's alarms?

"Tis but the voice that Jesus sends To call them to his arms.

2 Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?

There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.