p. 3 | HEAVEN | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 28, 1869

HEAVEN.

Those words, “no tears,” will look so blessed To eyes grown dim from weeping; Those words, “no death,” will come so glad To bodies, grave-ward creeping; “No sorrow,” wakes a thrill in hearts Long dead to other thrilling; “No crying,” sounds so soft to ears Earth’s moans have long been filling.

“No night there,” seems so bright to those Whose sun sank back at dawning; “No sea,” sounds calm to those who sail Long tempest-tost and mourning; “No pain,” drops bless’d on aching breasts Which face their deepest dreading; That rest falls sweet on weary feet Unchosen pathways treading.

But chiefly not for these, O Lord, I would most long for Heaven; For these bless’d gifts not mostly prize The home thy grace has given; But rather that there enters there No thing which can defile; That there my daily life shall be The sunlight of God’s smile:—

Less that my eyes are wiped from tears, Than that they rest on thee; More that my heart shall love thee right, Than free from pain shall be;— That there I shall love holiness, And sin shall be abhorred; Less for the woe it hath brought me, Than that it grieved my Lord:—

That there my will abidingly, Shall be at one with His, Not fitfully and changefully As here it always is; That there no sin shall ever spot My blood-washed soul again, I shall be pleasing in his sight, Because I have no sin:—

There ever at his feet to sit, And wonder at the grace, So large, so free, that it hath found In Heaven for me a place. Oh! not myself, but God shall be The center in that day; The blessed gifts of Heaven will be The putting self away.

—S. S. Times.