How Sweet and Awful is the Place

How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ with­in the doors,
While ev­er­last­ing love dis­plays
The choic­est of her stores!

Here ev­ery bow­el of our God
With soft com­pass­ion rolls;
Here peace and par­don bought with blood
Is food for dy­ing souls.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to ad­mire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thank­ful tongues,
“Lord, why was I a guest?

Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And en­ter while there’s room,
When thou­sands make a wretch­ed choice,
And ra­ther starve than come?

’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweet­ly forced us in;
Else we had still re­fused to taste,
And per­ished in our sin.

Pity the na­tions, O our God!
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy vic­to­ri­ous Word abroad,
And bring the stran­gers home.

We long to see Thy church­es full,
That all the chos­en race
May with one voice, and heart and soul,
Sing Thy re­deem­ing grace.