THERE is a land of pure delight

""THERE is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

2 There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.

3 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green ;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

4 But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shivering, on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

5 O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love With unbeclouded eyes;

6 Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.

Another hymn by Dr. Watts (see under No. 2); one of the first he wrote, but published with the others in 1707. This hymn carries forward the thought of No. 25. God has led now the children of Israel all the way to the river Jordan, which alone separates them from the promised land; and they should not be afraid that He will not take them safely across, nor fear to step into the waters. And the crossing of Jordan has been ever since an image of the Christian's death, and Canaan an image of heaven. We need not be afraid of death, while we look toward heaven. [NOTES.—Verse 3, line 4. Jordan rotted between. See Joshua iii, 1. Verse 6, line I. Where Moses stood. See Deuteronomy xxxiv, 1-4. Verse 6, line 3. This line is not very clearly expressed. The meaning is," Not Jordan's stream that is to say, not death's cold flood.)"]