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Looking Forward

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 19, 1866

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 28, No. 3.

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Looking Forward.

By Sarah A. Doud

“But if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.” Eccl. xi, 8.
SHALL this life of mine be wasted, Shall my mind be thus untilled? Shall true joys be passed untasted, And this soul remain unfilled?
Shall this heart spend all its treasures, On the things that fade and die? Shall it court the hollow pleasures Of bewildering vanity?
Shall I hear the free bird singing In the summer's azure sky, Far aloft its glad flight winging, And not seek to soar on high?
Shall these lips of mine be idle, Shall I open them in vain? Shall I not with God's own bridle, Their frivolities restrain?
Shall these eyes of mine still wander? Or no longer turned afar, Fix a firmer gaze and fonder On the bright and Morning Star?
Shall these feet of mine delaying, Still in ways of sin be found? Braving snares and madly straying On the world's enticing ground?
No! I was not born to trifle Life away in dreams of sin; No! I must not dare to stifle Longings such as these within.
Swiftly moving upward, onward, Let my soul in faith be borne, Calmly gazing skyward, homeward, Let me now unshrinking turn
Where the cross, God's love revealing, Sets the fettered spirit free; Where it sheds its wondrous healing, There, my soul, thy rest shall be.
Then no longer idly dreaming, Shall I fling my years away; But each precious hour redeeming, Wait for that eternal day!
SARAH A. DODD. Vassar, Mich., May 27, 1866.