Come Home!

"My suffering child! Thy days of grief are o'er,

Come home to Me, and rest forevermore."

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 naught hast done for Me,

I have done all, poor, sorrowing soul, for thee;

The word that thou for Me hast never spoken,

That 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 Savior 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 give me with Thy ransomed ones a place.

Now for eternity that grace to see,

Now for eternal songs to sing to Thee!

~ Elizabeth Payson Prentiss