483.
[Life, with all its toils and cares]
The Journey of Life. Gen. xlvii. 8. 9.
[_]
(After a Sermon by the Rev. Robert Hall.)
1
Life, with all its toils and cares,
To a journey semblance bears:
Whether earthly traveller found,
Or to heaven our steps are bound,
Incidents apply to each,
Which important truths may teach.
2
When we have our home resign'd,
Crosses we expect to find;
Here the house, and there the tent,
No condition permanent:
Called, vicissitudes to bear;
Such we know is traveller's fare.
3
If the hospitable voice,
Sometimes makes our hearts rejoice;
We must still our way pursue,
We a journey have in view:
Social joys, however sweet,
Must not stay our earnest feet.
4
If our path through danger lies,
If the inconvenience rise,
If our inn, both rude and bare,
Soften not the brow of care,
Hope must not desert our breast,
'Tis a resting-place at best.
5
Images of child and friend,
Cheer us, at our journey's end;
Pleasures rich, for sorrows past,
Will reward us, at the last:
Why on gloomy moments pore
With a year of joy before?
6
Emblem this, our hearts reply,
Of our journey to the sky:
Toils to press, and fears to scare,
Like our fathers, we must bear;
Wind and tempest, hail and rain,
Sometimes grief, and sometimes pain.
7
Many a name, to Jesus dear,
Travels long in darkness here;
Many a saint must watch and weep,
Ere the destin'd hour to reap;
Made in bitterness to roam,
Ere he shout his harvest-home.
8
But if, haply, we should find
Prosperous suns, and seasons kind;
Joys from infancy to age;
These must not our hearts engage;
Bound to a celestial sphere,
Nothing must detain us here.
9
Our delights can not be few,
When we keep the end in view:
Trials, in their utmost power,
Wear and vex us but an hour:
Though fatigue we now deplore,
There is rest enough in store!
10
All the troubles of the way,
Heaven at last will well repay:
We shall soon forget our woe,
In the world to which we go;
And, with all our journeyings o'er,
Praise the Lamb, and God adore.
