REST.
Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.—Psalm cxvi. 7.
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted.—Micah, ii. 10.
Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.—Hebrews, iv. 1, 9.
I pass, with melancholy state,
By all these solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as soft and sad I tread
Above the venerable dead,
“Time was, like me, they life possessed;
And time will be, when I shall rest.”
Parnell.
Think not of rest; though dreams be sweet,
Start up, and ply your heavenward feet.
Is not God’s oath upon your head,
Ne’er to sink back on slothful bed,
Never again your loins untie,
Nor let your torches waste and die,
Till, when the shadows thickest fall,
Ye hear your Master’s midnight call?
Keble.
Hail, heavenly voice, once heard in Patmos; “Write,
Henceforth the dead who die in Christ are blest:
Yea, saith the Spirit, for they now shall rest
From all their labours!” But no dull, dark night
That rest o’ershadows: ’tis the day-spring bright
Of bliss; the foretaste of a richer feast;
A sleep, if sleep it be, of lively zest,
Peopled with visions of intense delight.
And though the secrets of that resting-place
The soul embodied knows not; yet she knows
No sin is there God’s likeness to deface,
To stint His love, no purgatorial woes;
Her dross is left behind, nor mixture base
Mars the pure stream of her serene repose.
Bishop Mant.
Hail to the day, which He, who made the Heaven,
Earth, and their armies, sanctified and blest,
Perpetual memory of the Maker’s rest!
Hail to the day, when He, by whom was given
New life to man, the tomb asunder riven,
Arose! That day His church hath still confest,
At once creation’s and redemption’s feast,
Sign of a world call’d forth, a world forgiven.
Welcome that day, the day of holy peace,
The Lord’s own day! to man’s Creator owed,
And man’s Redeemer; for the soul’s increase
In sanctity, and sweet repose bestowed;
Type of the rest, when sin and care shall cease,
The rest remaining for the lov’d of God.
Bishop Mant.
Lord of the Sabbath, hear our vows,
On this Thy day, in this Thy house,
And own, as grateful sacrifice,
The songs which from the desert rise.
Thine earthly sabbaths, Lord, we love,
But there’s a nobler rest above;
To that our labouring souls aspire,
With ardent pangs of strong desire.
No more fatigue, no more distress,
Nor sin nor hell shall reach the place;
No groans to mingle with the songs
Which warble from immortal tongues.
No rude alarms of raging foes;
No cares to break the long repose;
No midnight shade, no clouded sun,
But sacred, high, eternal noon.
O long-expected day, begin,
Dawn on these realms of woe and sin!
Fain would we leave this weary road,
And sleep in death to rest with God.
Dr. Doddridge.
O, rest not now, but scatter wide the seeds
Of faithful words, and yet more faithful deeds;
So thou shalt rest above eternally,
When God the harvest fruit shall give to thee.
Bethune.
Not in this weary world of ours
Can perfect rest be found;
Thorns mingle with its fairest flowers,
Even on cultured ground;
Earth’s pilgrim still his loins must gird
To seek a lot more blest;
And this must be his onward word—
“In Heaven alone is rest!”
Bernard Barton.
He passeth calmly from that sunny morn,
Where all the buds of youth are newly born,
Through varying intervals of onward years,
Until the eve of his decline appears;
And while the shadows round his path descend,
And down the vale of age his footsteps tend,
Peace o’er his bosom sheds her soft control,
And throngs of gentlest memories charm the soul;
Then, weaned from earth, he turns his steadfast eye
Beyond the grave, whose verge he falters nigh,
Surveys the brightening regions of the blest,
And, like a wearied pilgrim, sinks to rest.
Willis G. Clark.
Oh, when life’s sunset draws around me,
Closing my eventful day,
Let Thy love, O Christ, upon me
Shed its pure and spirit ray.
Up the starry steeps of even,
Let Thy spirit be my guide,
Till in the deathless light of heaven,
Lost to earth, my spirit glide.
There, where daylight ever lingers,
O’er the vernal flower-clad plains,—
There, where morning’s rosy fingers
Wreathe with light the azure main—
There, where all we dream of brightness,
Joy or peace, to make us blest,
May the wrapt soul on wings of lightness
Find rest, ah, yes: eternal rest.
Rev. E. Case.