To teach us that our home is not Here, where we seek to live, But that we have a happier lot Than aught this world can give, Death comes,--and when right understood His lesson sure is blest.-- Thus one by one, the loved, the good, Are gathered to their rest!
[3] He was interred in the family burying-place, New Calton Burying-ground, Edinburgh.
OH! weep not for the dead; they are at rest-- No more shall earthly cares their minds molest; Waste not a thought on them, nor yet bemoan Who to the grave's cold heritage have gone.
No sorrow know they in their narrow bed; They sin no more who slumber with the dead; They are at rest, from earth-born troubles free,-- Fixed is their doom, as lies the stricken tree.
Weep for yourself--for those who linger here, In pain and sadness, through the varying year; Still looking through life's vista to the close, When faith in Christ alone can bring repose.
And weep for those who go to other climes, With toil and hoarding to gain gold betimes-- From friends and country parted, as if nought But this world's fleeting wealth were worth their thought!
Weep for the dead in sin--the guilty soul That might, but yet refuses, to be whole-- For him who never heard the Saviour's name, For him who, having heard, rejects the same.
Oh! weep not for the dead, nor those who go Into mortality's dread depths below; But weep for those who mourn and suffer here, The slaves of sin, and all its guilty fear!
"What have I to do any more with Idols?"--Hos. xiv. 8.
WHERE'ER the light of gospel truth Has shed its glorious rays, The heart casts off all shapes uncouth, And shuns the wonted ways.
The hills assume a brighter mould, The flowers a fairer hue, We quit the fading and the old, And seek the fresh and new.
The dark and dismal thoughts that brood Within the carnal mind, Are straightway changed to bright and good, When there the truth hath shined:
As metals in the earth deep set, Though worthless in its womb, Refined by skilful art, do yet Precious and rich become.
But man, degenerate from his birth, Headlong in guilt is driven, Still does his spirit cling to earth, When it should rise to heaven.
To vile and perverse courses prone,-- The viler more his boast, Rejects all guidance save his own, And sunk in sin, is lost.