Christian Worship The Shortness Of Life.

Like shadows gliding o’er the plain,
Or clouds that roll successive on,
Man’s busy generations pass,
And while we gaze their forms are gone.

He lived,-he died; behold the sum,
The abstract of the historian’s page!
Alike, in God’s all-seeing eye,
The infant’s day, the patriarch’s age.

O Father! in whose mighty hand
The boundless years and ages lie;
Teach us thy boon of life to prize,
And use the moments as they fly;

To crowd the narrow span of life
With wise designs and virtuous deeds;
And bid us wake from death’s dark night,
To share the glory that succeeds.