By:
Edited by Heyman Wreford
Sent by a Friend.
They call it “going down the hill”
When we are growing old,
And speak in mournful accents
When our tale is nearly told;
They sigh when talking of the past,
Those “days that used to be,”
As if the future were not bright
With immortality.
But oh! it is not going down,
‘Tis climbing higher, higher!
Until we almost see the home
Our longing souls desire;
For if the natural eye grows dim,
It is but dim to earth,
While the eye of faith grows keener
To perceive the Saviour’s worth.
Those “bygone days,” though days of joy,
We wish them not again;
Were there not also stormy days
Of sorrow and of pain?
But in these days awaiting us,
Those days beyond the tomb,
Sorrow shall never find a place,
But joys eternal bloom.
For though in truth the outward man
Must perish and decay,
The inward man shall be renewed
By grace from day to day.
They who are “planted” by the Lord.
Unshaken in the root,
E’en to old age “shall flourish still,”
And ever “bring forth fruit.”
It is not years that make men old,
The spirit may be young,
Although for threescore years and ten
The wheels of time have run.
We know God has recorded in
The blessed book of truth,
That they who “wait upon the Lord”
They shall renew their youth.
And when the eyes now dim with age
Behold His blessed face,
We then shall know as we are known
And magnify His grace;
And when our ears now dull with years
Shall hear His heavenly voice,
How will the heart o’erflow with praise,
And evermore rejoice!
The head now hoary-turned shall wear
An everlasting crown,
The gift of Him who trod this earth
And claims it for His own.
Who can describe the blessedness
Of joys with Him untold?
The pathway ended here for that
Of never growing old!
“But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”