They’re Gathering

There’s a crowd gathering on another shore,

The group’s grower larger every day.

They are gathering in from all directions,

Yet all came there by God’s narrow way.

 

That crowd had skins of different shades,

Spoke languages to each other quite unknown,

But they are connected by one Royal Blood,

For Christ firmly owns them for His own.

 

That crowd landed where they planned to land.

They found their long sought heavenly goal.

They weathered all life’s threatening storms,

Insisting on “saving” (at all cost) their soul.

 

Soon, Friend, you may be gathered with them,

Soon I may join the celestial number,

Where the Son is the light for all the day,

(And where we’ll need no night for slumber.)

 

Let us then be Faithful with a capitol “F,” 

To the Lord who rules that group, that shore,

And gather with the enumerable saints, young and old.

Gather to Christ, and gather to part nevermore.        – eab, 8/25/08  

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William Cowper – birth, Nov. 26, 1731

“There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

Cowper is pronounced as if spelled “Cooper.”  He also wrote a long poem, “The Task.”

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