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    FOR ever with the Lord!
   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.
 
2      My Father’s house on high,
    Home of my soul, how near
At times to faith’s foreseeing eye
    The golden gates appear!
    Ah! then my spirit faints
    To reach the land I love,
The bright inheritance of saints,
    Jerusalem above.
 
3      For ever with the Lord!
    Father, if ’tis Thy will,
The promise of that faithful word
    E’en here to me fulfil.
    Be Thou at my right hand,
    Then can I never fail;
Uphold Thou me, and I shall stand;
    Fight, and I must prevail.
 
4      So when my latest breath
    Shall rend the veil in twain,
By death I shall escape from death,
    And life eternal gain.
    Knowing as I am known,
    How shall I love that word,
And oft repeat before the throne,
    ‘For ever with the Lord!’
 
James Montgomery, 1771-1854