The Hidden Path

One place have I in heaven above
The glory of His throne—
On this dark earth, whence He is gone,
I have one place alone,
And if His rest in Heaven I know,
I joy to find His path below,

We meet to own that place alone
Around the broken bread—
The dead whose life is hid with Christ
Remembering Jesus dead.
For us has set the earthly light,
Above, the glory; here, the night.

And dear as is His place on high,
His footsteps are below,
Where He has gone through scorn and wrong,
There also would I go.
Lord, where Thou diedst I would die,
For where Thou livest, there am I.

One lonely path across the waste,
Thy lowly path of shame;
I would adore Thy wondrous grace
That I should tread the same.
The Stranger and the Alien, Thou—
And I the stranger, alien, now.

Thy Cross a mighty barrier stands
Between the world and me—
Not yielding with reluctant hands,
But glorying to be free,
From that which now is dung and dross,
Beside Thy Glory, and Thy Cross.

I see Thee there amidst the light,
The Father’s blessed Son;
I know that I in Thee am there,
That light and love mine own.
What has this barren world to give,
If there in Thy deep joy I live?

Sent hither from that glorious Home,
As Thou wert sent before,
Of that great love from whence I come
To witness evermore,
For this would I count all things loss,
Thy joy, Thy glory, and Thy Cross.

Source: Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) #50