The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

But is the hasty spirit fled?
But hath my friend inclined her head,
And laid her burden down?
Dead, dead to man, to God she lives,
And from her Saviour's hands receives
The never-fading crown.

267

Away my tears, and selfish sighs!
The happy saint in paradise
Requires us not to mourn;
But rather keep her life in view,
And still her shining steps pursue,
Till all to God return.

Her life from outward evil free,
From every gross enormity
Her life of nature was:
Harmless she pass'd her time to play,
Stranger to Christ the living Way,
Regardless of His cross.

But when she heard the gospel-sound,
The seed received in the good ground,
The heart-engrafted word
Produced an hundred-fold increase,
And join'd to Jesus' witnesses,
She gloried in her Lord.

With joy she flew her all to sell,
Borne on the wings of rapid zeal,
Impatient of delay;
Away she cast with eager strife
Kindred and friends, and more than life,
She cast her fame away.

Where Satan keeps his gaudy throne,
Firm as the righteous Lot, alone
Against the world she stood,
The cross endured, the shame despised,
And only sought, and only prized,
The praise that comes from God.

268

When men and fiends against her rose,
Could all her fierce opprobrious foes
Her steadfast faith o'erturn?
A follower of the patient Lamb,
The hatred she with love o'ercame,
And triumph'd in the scorn.

Her solid piety unfeign'd
A witness from her foes obtain'd,
And forced them to confess,
“Where faith appears with virtue crown'd,
Religion pure on earth is found,
And all her paths are peace.”

University of Virginia Library

HYMN XXX.

[PART I.]

[But is the hasty spirit fled?]