Deut. xxxi. 8.
On, O beloved
children,
The
evening is at
hand,
And desolate and
fearful
The
solitary
land.
Take heart! the
rest eternal
Awaits
our weary
feet;
From strength to
strength press onwards,
The
end, how passing
sweet!
Lo, we can tread
rejoicing
The
narrow pilgrim
road;
We know the voice
that calls us,
We
know our faithful
God.
Come, children, on
to glory!
With
every face set
fast
Towards the golden
towers
Where
we shall rest at
last.
It was with voice
of singing
We
left the land of
night,
To pass in glorious
music
Far
onward out of
sight.
O children, was it
sorrow?
Though
thousand worlds be
lost,
Our eyes have
looked on Jesus,
And
thus we count the
cost.
The praising and
the blaming,
The
storehouse and the
mart,
The mourning and
the feasting,
The
glory and the
art,
The wisdom and the
cunning,
Left
far amid the
gloom;
We may not look
behind us,
For
we are going
home.
Across the will of
nature
Leads
on the path of
God;
Not where the flesh
delighteth
The
feet of Jesus
trod.
O bliss to leave
behind us
The
fetters of the
slave,
To leave
ourselves behind us,
The
grave-clothes and the
grave!
To speed,
unburdened pilgrims,
Glad,
empty-handed,
free;
To cross the
trackless deserts,
And
walk upon the
sea;
As strangers among
strangers,
No
home beneath the
sun;
How soon the
wanderings ended,
The
endless rest
begun!
We pass the
children playing,
For
evening shades fall
fast;
We pass the wayside
flowers-
God's
Paradise at
last!
If now the path be
narrow
And
steep and rough and
lone,
If crags and
tangles cross it,
Praise
God! we will go
on.
We follow in His
footsteps;
What
if our feet be
torn?
Where He has marked
the pathway
All
hail the briar and
thorn!
Scarce seen, scarce
heard, unreckoned,
Despised,
defamed,
unknown,
Or heard but by our
singing,
On,
children! ever
on!