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Looking Forward

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 8, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 2.

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Looking Forward

By L. D. Santee

L. D. SANTEE
The shining skies blaze as a sea of glory, The bending heavens seem to beckon me. With sin and storms the earth is wan and hoary, With wars and crimes untold her fields are gory; The serpent leaves his trail on land and sea; And evermore the whole creation groaneth, Waiting the coming glory yet to be.
O that some white-winged angel from the highest Would fold his pinions in our lower sphere, And teach us that the ones to God the highest, Each faithful one that in his closet sighest, Shall have reward when Jesus shall appear; That even now the dawn of life immortal That ushers in the endless day is near;
That Christ shall come in clouds of untold splendor, Surrounded by the shining angel throng; That with a love most catholic and tender, For every cross a recompense will render, And bear his own up to the land of song, Who wait a surcease of all earthly sorrow, A sweet forgetfulness of pain and wrong.
Sweeter than islands in some tropic ocean, The headlands bright of paradise shall gleam; My faith looks up, and with a deep emotion My heart ascends to God with prayer's devotion, And of my glad new home rejoices and dreams, Where friends enjoy a sweet communion ever, And love flows on in one eternal stream.
O shining stars in midnight's concave swinging, Soon through your midst shall come the saints' Desire! The righteous will ascend with joy and singing, Taken by angels where sweet harps are ringing, While earth melts in her crucible of fire. Our faith, our love, is to his promise clinging; Only to do his will do we aspire.
Moline, Ill.