With golden bells, the priestly vest,
And rich pomegranates bordered round,
The need of holiness expressed,
And called for fruit as well as sound.
Easy indeed it were to reach
A mansion in the courts above,
If swelling words and fluent speech
Might serve instead of faith and love.
But none shall gain the blissful place,
Or God’s unclouded glory see,
Who talks of free and sovereign grace,
Unless that grace has made him free!
This is not a favourite strain of Cowper’s. His hymns are nearly
always the expression of personal emotion or experience. We may close
our quotations from his Olney hymns with one which expresses, in his
own way, the common yearning of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.