A HYMN FOR TODAY

There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never-with’ring flow’rs:
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heav’nly land from ours.
But timid mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shiv’ring on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove
Those gloomy thoughts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes!
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood
Should fright us from the shore.

CMD (8.6.8.6.D) – Isaac Watts, 1707

Tune: JORDAN – William Billings, 1786

Arr. Charles L. Willis, 2010

#751 in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, 2012