A Celebration Of Sixty Years

Lines Written By Mary R. Bennett, On Completing Her 60^th Year, Eight Months Before Her Decease

Another milestone has to me been given,

Another landmark on the way to heaven,

Now sixty have been numbered one by one

Swiftly and silently I travel on;

Why should my life so full of mercy be?

Why has God given so good a lot to me?

When sins oppressed my young and anxious mind,

He turned my eyes to Jesus, made me find

In Him my Saviour and my endless peace:

And said to me that, when life here should cease,

I should be with Him in the realms of bliss;

Should know and love, and see Him as He is,

All the long years of pain or grief or strife,

This knowledge has made music in my life;

And shall I now begin to tell of sorrows past?

No! I will speak of mercy to the last.

It cannot now be long ere I shall go

To meet Him where the living waters flow,

To see Him face to face whom I would see,

And in His presence evermore to be;

To meet the loved ones who are gone before,

To praise my God with them upon that shore

Where partings are unknown, where all is peace,

Where love and joy and bliss shall never cease,

Till then I wait His time: Lord, give to me

That perfect peace which trusts my all to Thee.

My dear ones now I put into Thy hand,

Grant them to meet me in that heavenly land;

And, if Thy will be so, O let me know

That they are Thine before I hence must go. 

March 28^th, 1894

Earthen Vessel 1895