On His Birthday, Hymn 42: At the Meeting of Friends

Saviour of sinful men,
Thy goodness we proclaim,
Which brings us here to meet again,
And triumph in Thy name!
Thy mighty name hath been
Our refuge and our tower,
Hath saved us from the world, and sin,
And all the' accuser's power.

Jesu, take all the praise,
That still on earth we live,
Unspotted in so foul a place,
And innocently grieve;
Shut up in Sodom, we
No pride or anger find,
But still compassionately see
The baseness of mankind.

We mourn, till Thou appear,
Along the desert way:
Briers, and thorns are with us here,
And we with scorpions stay;
Constraint (alas! how long!)
With human fiends to dwell,
Sinners of lying lips, whose tongue
Is set on fire of hell.

Through calumny, and pain,
Through a long vale of woe,
Far from the poisonous sons of men,
To purer worlds we go:
We shall from Sodom flee,
When perfected in love,
And haste to better company,
Who wait for us above.

The saints of ancient days,
We shall with them sit down,
Who fought the fight, and run the race,
And then received the crown;
Who first severely tried,
And exercised beneath,
Broke through the world, with Christ their guide,
And more than conquer'd death.

The prophets of the Lord,
Who suffer'd for His name,
Who bore, by fiends and men abhorr'd,
The Galilean 's shame;
They that endured His cross,
And did His cup receive,
Of whom the world unworthy was,
Were deem'd not fit to live.

Swept from the earth away,
They join'd the heavenly throng;
And now for us their brethren stay,
And ever cry, " How long!"
Jesus the cry doth hear,
And He shall soon return,
With endless joy our souls to cheer,
Who for His coming mourn.

Awhile in flesh disjoin'd,
Our friends that went before
We soon in paradise shall find,
And meet to part no more;
In yonder blissful seat,
Waiting for us they are —
And thou shalt there an husband meet,
And I a parent there!

Oh! what a mighty change
Shall Jesu's sufferers know,
While o'er the happy plains we range,
Incapable of woe!
No ill-requited love
Shall there our spirits wound,
No base ingratitude above,
No sin in heaven is found.

There all our griefs are spent,
There all our sufferings end,
We cannot there the fall lament
Of a departed friend,
A brother, dead to God,
By sin, alas! undone —
No father there, in passion loud,
Cries, Oh! my son, my son!

Nor slightest touch of pain,
Nor sorrow's least alloy
Can violate our rest, or stain
Our purity of joy:
In that eternal day
No clouds or tempests rise;
These gushing tears are wiped away
For ever from our eyes.

This languishing desire
Which now for heaven we feel
Shall there delightfully expire
In joy ineffable:
The weight of glorious bliss
That to our share shall fall
Not angel tongues can half express;
But we shall have it all.