Mosaic Vase and Dried Roses with When languor and disease invade and Weary of earth, and laden with my sin

  When languor and disease invade
  This trembling house of clay,
‘Tis sweet to look beyond my pains,
  And long to fly away;

  Sweet to look inward, and attend
  The whispers of his love;
Sweet to look upward, to the place
  Where Jesus pleads above;

  Sweet to look back, and see my name
  In life’s fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward, and behold
  Eternal joys my own;

  Sweet to reflect how grace divine
  My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that his blood
  My debt of suffering paid;

  Sweet to rejoice in lively hope,
  That, when my change shall come,
Angels shall hover round my bed,
  And waft my spirit home.

  If such the sweetness of the stream,
  What must the fountain be,
Where saints and angels draw their bliss
  Directly, Lord, from thee!

Augustus M. Toplady

Weary of earth, and laden with my sin,
I look at heaven and long to enter in;
But there no evil thing may find a home;
And yet I hear a voice that bids me “Come.”

So vile I am, how dare I hope to stand
In the pure glory of that holy land?
Before the whiteness of that throne appear?
Yet there are hands stretched out to draw me near.

The while I fain would tread the heavenly way,
Evil is ever with me day by day;
Yet on mine ears the gracious tidings fall,
“Repent, confess, thou shalt be loosed from all.”

It is the voice of Jesus that I hear;
His are the hands stretched out to draw me near,
And His the blood that can for all atone,
And set me faultless there before the throne.

Yea, Thou wilt answer for me, righteous Lord;
Thine all the merits, mine the great reward;
Thine the sharp thorns, and mine the golden crown;
Mine the life won, and Thine the life laid down.

Rev. Samuel J. Stone