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WHAT SHALL I BE?

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 19, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 27.

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"WHAT SHALL I BE?"

By E. C. G. Langbecker

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 1 John 3:2.
What shall I be? My Lord, when I behold thee In awful majesty at God's right hand; And mid th' eternal glories that enfold me, In strange bewilderment, O Lord, I stand, What shall I be? These tears they dim my sight I cannot catch the blissful vision right.
What shall I be? Lord, when thy radiant glory, As from the grave I rise, encircles me; When brightly pictured in the light before me, What eye hath never seen, my eyes shall see, What shall I be? Ah, blessed and sublime Is the dim prospect of that glorious time!
What shall I be? When days of grief are ended, From earthly fetters set forever free; When from the harps of saints and angels blended, I hear the burst of joyful melody, What shall I be? When risen from the dead, Sin, death, and hell I never more shall dread.
What shall I be? When all around are thronging The loved of earth, where I have come to dwell; When all is joy and praise,—no anxious longing, No bitter parting, and no sad farewell, What shall I be? Ah, how the streaming light Can lend a brightness to this dreary night!
Yes, faith can never know the full salvation, Which Jesus for his people will prepare; Then will I wait in peaceful expectation Till the Good Shepherd comes to take me there. My Lord, my God, a blissful end I see, Though now I know not what I yet shall be! —E. C. G. Langbecker.