Forever with the Lord!
James Montgomery
Amen, so let it be:
Life from the dead is in that word,
’Tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam;
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent,
A day’s march nearer home.
My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul, how near
At times to faith’s illumined eye,
Thy golden gates appear!
My thirsty spirit faints,
To reach the land I love,
The bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
Yet clouds will intervene,
And all my prospect flies;
Like Noah’s dove, I flit between
Rough seas and stormy skies.
Anon the clouds depart,
The winds and waters cease,
While sweetly o’er my gladdened heart
Expands the bow of peace.
This hymn is from J. C. Ryle’s little book Spiritual Songs, published in 1849, when he was rector of Helmingham, Suffolk. The hymns Ryle selected were not found in the most common hymnbooks of the day.
Suggested tune: Nearer Home (Woodbury).
Download a .pdf file of the hymnal.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
