Shepherd of Souls, Thy Sheep Behold

Shepherd of souls

Thy sheep be­hold

In this dark

cloudy day

The wolf is come into Thy fold

To scat­ter

tear

and slay.

His bloody hand th’op­press­or shakes

Against the faith­ful seed

And ha­voc of Thy Church he makes—

He makes us as our head.

Thy marks we in our bo­dies bear

But arm us with Thy pow­er

The rage of fiends and men we dare

And meet the ev­il hour.

They on­ly can our bo­dies kill

Our souls can nev­er die;

Our souls ex­ist in Je­sus still

And reign ab­ove the sky.

Wherefore the ut­most suf­fer­ings here

Of those who Je­sus love

We count not wor­thy to com­pare

With our re­ward ab­ove.

Light are the pains we now en­dure

And quick­ly over-past

But of the plea­sures they se­cure

Eternally shall last.

On all th’af­flict­ion we look down

The joy so far ex­ceeds

So bright

so weigh­ty is the crown

It sets up­on your heads.

O what a glo­ri­ous life shall be

In us

e’en us re­vealed

While face to face our Lord we see

With all His full­ness filled.

Who would not then

for such a hope

The path of sor­row tread

And take his mas­ter’s bur­den up

And suf­fer with his Head?

Who would not cheer­ful­ly sus­tain

A cross so light as this

And bear a mo­men­ta­ry pain

For an eter­nal bliss?