How love­ly are the sil­ver rills
That down the mount­ain glide;
How soft the dew on Zi­on’s hills,
And Her­mon’s lof­ti­er side.

But soft­er than the drops of dew,
Than sil­ver rills more fair,
Is Gos­pel light, re­vealed to view
In re­gions lone and bare.

What though in earth­en vess­els borne,
Yet glo­ri­ous ’tis to pour
Instruction, like the beams of morn,
On na­tions dark be­fore.

So full of en­er­gy di­vine,
The Lord’s en­light­en­ing Word
Can make the cheer­less de­sert shine
A gar­den of the Lord.

What though the mes­sen­ger be weak;
E’en an­gels might re­joice
To speak the words that he shall speak,
Or list­en to his voice:

When in a lone and sav­age place
Some hu­man foot­prints say,
“Pur­sue, thou min­is­ter of grace,
Thy heav’n­ly Mas­ter’s way.

“Go, find the lost, that they may live;
The wan­der­ers bring again;
Nor seek, in what our hands can give,
Rewards for half thy pain.

“In yon­der tent a har­dy race
Invites the Shep­herd’s care,
To lead them to the throne of grace
In pe­ni­tence and pray­er.

“Soon by those wild and sim­ple ones
Shall pi­ous hymns be sung,
And they shall breathe in Chris­tian tones
Their own, their na­tive tongue.

“And hap­py thou, when life is past,
And all is peace and rest,
Should they, through thee, have learned at last
The lang­uage of the blest!

“Thy fare is coarse, thy couch is hard,
And thorns thy path at­tend;
But think up­on the great reward
That crowns thy jour­ney’s end.

In all the scenes of life’s al­loy
Be this thy soul’s re­lief;
Thy Mas­ter went not up to joy,
But first He suf­fered grief.