MY soul, how lovely is the place To which thy God resorts! ’Tis Heaven to know His smiling face Here in His earthly courts.
For here the God of earth and skies His saving power displays; And light breaks in on mortal eyes With kind and quickening rays.
And here the quickening, heavenly Dove, Descends to fill the place, While Christ makes known His mighty love And sheds abroad His grace.
Here, Lord, to me Thy Word declare, The secrets of Thy will; And help me seek all fulness here, And sing Thy praises still.
To spend one day within the place Where my dear Lord has been, Is sweeter than ten thousand days Of earth’s most vaunted sin.
Isaac Watts, 1674-1748‡