4 Pride, sinful pleasures, lusts and snares, Beset your hearts, your eyes, your ears— Take the alarm-the danger fly!

1

Lord, save me, be your earnest cry.

HYMN 160. C. M.

Middle Age.

AND have I measur'd half my days,
And half my journey run,

Nor tasted the Redeemer's grace,
Nor yet my work begun?

2 The morning of my life is past;
The noon is almost o'er:
The night of death approaches fast,
When I can work no more.

3 O Thou, who seest and know'st my grief,
Thyself unseen, unknown,
In mercy help my unbelief,

And melt my heart of stone.

1 Regard me with a gracious eye,
The long-sought blessing give,
And bid me, at the point to die,
Behold thy face, and live.

1

HYMN 161. C. M.

ETERNAL

Old Age.

TERNAL God! enthron'd on high!
Whom angel hosts adore;

Who yet to suppliant dust art nigh,
Thy presence I implore.

2 Oh, guide me down the steep of age,
And keep my passions cool;

Teach me to scan the sacred page,
And practise ev'ry rule.

3 My flying years time urges on,
What's human must decay:

My friends, my young companions, gone,
Can I expect to stay?

4 Ah! No-then soothe the mortal hour,
On thee my hope depends;
Support me with almighty pow'r,
While dust to dust descends.

1

WE

LIFE AND DEATH.

HYMN 162. C. M.

Sickness sweetened.

WHEN languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains,
And long to fly away.

2 Sweet to look inward, and attend
The whispers of his love:
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above.

3 Sweet to look back, and see my name
In life's fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward, and behold
Eternal joys my own.

4 Sweet to reflect, how grace divine,
My sins on Jesus laid;

Sweet to remember, that his blood,
My debt of suff'ring paid.

5 Sweet in his righteousness to stand,
Which saves from second death;
Sweet t' experience, day by day,
His Spirit's quick'ning breath.

6 Sweet on his faithfulness to rest,
Whose love can never end:

Sweet on his covenant of grace,
For all things to depend.

7 Sweet in the confidence of faith,
To trust his firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in his hands,
And know no will but his.

8 If such the sweetness of the streams,
What must the fountain be,
Where saints and angels draw their bliss,
Immediately from thee?

1

HYMN 163. S. M.

Issues of Life and Death.

OH, where shall rest be found,

Rest for the weary soul!

"Twere vain the ocean's depths to sound, Or pierce to either pole.

2 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.

3 Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,
Unmeasur'd by the flight of years-
And all that life is love.

4 There is a death whose pang
Outlasts the fleeting breath:
Oh! what eternal horrors hang
Around the second death!

5 Lord God of truth and grace,

Teach us that death to shun ;—
Lest we be driven from thy face,
And evermore undone.

6 Here would we end our quest

1

Alone are found in thee

The life of perfect love-the rest
Of immortality.

W

HYMN 164. L. M.

The Living and the Dead.

WHERE are the dead?-In heav'n or hell
Their disembodied spirits dwell;

Their perish'd forms in bonds of clay,
Reserv'd until the judgment day.

2 Who are the dead?-The sons of time
In ev'ry age, and state, and clime;
Renown'd, dishonour'd, or forgot,
The place that knew them, knows them not.
3 Where are the living?-On the ground
Where pray'r is heard and mercy found;
Where, in the compass of a span,
The mortal makes th' immortal man.

4 Who are the living ?-They whose breath
Draws ev'ry moment nigh to death;
Of endless bliss or woe the heirs:
Oh, what an awful lot is theirs!

5 Then, timely warn'd, let us begin
To follow Christ and flee from sin;
Daily grow up in him our head,
Lord of the living and the dead.

1

HYMN 165. C. M.

Death of a Youth.

THEN blooming youth is snatch'd away death's resistless hand,

By

Our hearts the mournful tribute pay,

Which pity must demand.

2 While pity prompts the rising sigh,
O may this truth, imprest

With awful pow'r-I too must die-
Sink deep in every breast.

3 Let this vain world engage no more:
Behold the gaping tomb!
It bids us seize the present hour!
To-morrow, death may come.

4 The voice of this alarming scene
May ev'ry heart obey;

Nor be the heav'nly warning vain,
Which calls to watch and pray!

5 O let us fly, to Jesus fly,

1

Whose pow'rful arm can save;
Then shall our hopes ascend on high,
And triumph o'er the grave.

HYMN 166. L. M.

The Death of the Righteous.

OW bless'd the righteous when he dies!
When sinks a weary soul to rest,
How mildly beam the closing eyes,
How gently heaves th' expiring breast!

2 So fades a summer cloud away,

So sinks the gale, when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eve of day,

So dies a wave along the shore.

3 A holy quiet reigns around,

A calm which life, nor death, destroys;
Nothing disturbs that peace profound
Which his unfetter'd soul enjoys.

4 Farewell, conflicting hopes, and fears,
Where lights and shades alternate dwell!
How bright th' unchanging morn appears!
Farewell, inconstant world, farewell.