The Issues of Life and Death

O where shall rest be found,
Rest for the weary soul?
'Twere vain the ocean-depths to sound,
Or pierce to either pole;
The world can never give
The bliss for which we sigh;
'Tis not the whole of life to live;
Nor all of death to die.

Beyond this vale of tears,
There is a life above,
Unmeasured by the flight of years;
And all that life is love;--
There is a death, whose pang
Ontlasts the fleeting breath;
O what eternal horrors hang
Around "the second death!"

Lord God of truth and grace,
Teach us that death to shun,
Lest we be banish'd from Thy face,
And evermore undone:
Here would we end our quest;
Alone are found in Thee,
The life of perfect love,--the rest
Of immortality.