Sound Words - 1873, His Sent Ones (20:21)


" Who are these who come amongst us,Strangers to our speech and ways?Passing by our joys and treasures,Singing in the darkest days?Are they pilgrims journeying onFrom a land we have not known?"

We are come front a far country,

From a land beyond the sun;

We are come from that great glory,

Round our God's eternal throne:

Thence we come and thither -go,

Here no resting-place we know.

For within that depth of glory,

In the Father's house above,

We have learned His wondrous secret,

We have learned His heart of love;

We have seen and we have heard

That bright joy He hath prepared.

We have seen the golden city

Shining as the jasper stone;

Heard the song that fills the heavens

Of the Man upon the throne-

Well that glorious One we know,.

He has sent, us here below.

We have drunk the living waters,

On the Tree of Life have fed;

Therefore deathless do we journey,

Midst the dying and the dead;

And untwisting do we stand

Here amidst the barren sand.

Round us, as a cloud of glory

Lighting up the midnight road,

Falls the light from that bright city,

Showing us where He has trod,

All that here might please thy sight,

Lost in that eternal light.

" Wherefore are ye come among us,From. the glory to the gloom?"

Christ in glory breathed within us

Life-His life, and bid us come,

Here as living springs to be-

Fountains of that life are we.

Fountains of that life that floweth

Ever downwards from the throne,

Witnesses of that bright glory

Where rejected, Ηe is gone.

Sent to give the blind their sight,

Turn the darkness into light.

There amidst the joy eternal,

Is the Man who went above,

Bearing marks of all the hatred

Of the world He sought in love.

He has sent us here to tell

That His love is changeless still:

He has sent us, that in sorrow

And in suffering, toil and loss,

We may learn the wondrous sweetness,

The deep mystery of His cress,

Learn-the depths of love that traced

That blest path across the waste.

From the dark and troubled waters

Many a pearl to Him we hear,

Golden sheaves we bring with singing,

All his depths of joy we share,

And our pilgrim journey O’er,

Praise with Him forever more!