JESUS KNOWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 30, 1871

“JESUS KNOWS.”

SHE is standing on her watch— Faith, the meek eyed child of days, With an ear intent to catch What the far-off echoes say— O’er her feet the surges breaking Of the restless sea of life, Thrones and empires round her shaking In a world’s tumultuous strife. Not one silver streak of morning Lifts the somber veil of night— Yet she watcheth for the dawning, Yet she waiteth for the light. Will it never come—the glory— Stealing o’er that gloomy sky? Will it never cease—the story Of a world-wide misery? On her lips the answer glows— “Jesus knows!”

Art thou standing on thy tower, Pilgrim-soldier of the King! There to “watch one little hour,” ’T ill his advent bells shall ring? Faint not, though thy breast be heaving With the sob of moral woe; He to whom thy soul is cleaving Told thee that it must be so— Told thee that through tribulation, Baptism of tears and blood, Lay the path of consecration, Lay the highway back to God. Blessed be the foot that findeth That ascending track of gold. Brightening ever, as it windeth Through the desert to the fold, Whose beginning and whose close Jesus knows!

Hast thou found Him, O my soul— Him, the new, the living way? Art thou speeding toward the goal, Out of darkness into day? Lord, thou knowest the poor measure I have yielded back to thee, In return for all the treasure Thy rich love has been to me; Yet my heart-strings twine about thee, Day by day, with closer cling; All the earth were blank without thee. Life itself a blighted thing. Here am I—’tis love’s surrender; “To thy garden come and reap,” ’Neath the wing of her Defender, “Give thou thy beloved sleep.” Here, for aye, would she repose— Jesus knows! —Sel.