Come Home!

"My suffering child! thy days of grief are o'er,
Come home to Me, and rest for evermore."

Jesus! Thou Lord of all! I dare not go;
No work well done for Thee I have to show.

"Great deeds I ask not; but some act of love,
One word for Me thy righteousness may prove."

Alas! I do remember no such word,
Nor one such act! Pardon me, oh my Lord!

"Yet come, my child, 'tis I who bid thee come,
Nothing I ask from thee; come home, come home!"

I cannot, dare not! Call me not Thy child,
Behold my hands, my heart, with sin defiled!
Behold my wasted life, my barren years,
Behold my murmurs, my rebellious tears;
See how myself I love while cold towards Thee,
My conscience seared, my hardened heart, oh see!

"I see. And since thou nought hast done for Me,
I have done all, poor, sorrowing soul, for thee;
The word that thou for me hast never spoken,
The word I spake for thee with faith unbroken;
The loving deed thou didst not, I have done,
And interceded for thee near the throne.
Thy sins, thy wasted life, thy heart defiled,
Better I know than thou dost know them, child,
And freely all that sin I have forgiven;
Come home, my child, come home to Me and heaven."

My blessed Lord! My Saviour and my All!
Weeping no longer, I obey Thy call,
I come, to praise Thee with my heart and voice,
I come, with blood-bought sinners to rejoice;
I bless my dying day, I bless the grace
That gives me with Thy ransomed ones a place.
Now for eternity that grace to see,
Now for eternal songs to sing to Thee!

--Golden Hours, Elizabeth Prentiss--