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Monday, November 09, 2009

Life the day of grace and hope

HYMN 88, L. M.

Life the day of grace and hope. Eccl. 9:4-6,10.

Life is the time to serve the Lord,
The time t' insure the great reward;
And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.

The living know that they must die,
But all the dead forgotten lie;
Their mem'ry and their sense is gone,
Alike unknowing and unknown.

Then what my thoughts design to do,
My hands, with all your might pursue;
Since no device nor work is found,
Nor faith, nor hope, beneath the ground.

There are no acts of pardon passed
In the cold grave, to which we haste;
But darkness, death, and long despair,
Reign in eternal silence there.


Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We are all given only a measure of time. I've thought about it many times. If we knew when our sand would all pass through the hour glass, what would we be doing differently now, or how would we have changed things from the past?