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Hymns of the English Church

Come Let Us Join Our Friends Above

A hymn urging Christians to think of those who have died as ever-present with us, in our worship, our prayers and our hearts.

By Charles Wesley 1707-1788

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Come Let Us Join Our Friends Above

Photo by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

A view of the monastery of the Nilov Monastery on Stolobny Island in Lake Seliger, Tver, Russia.

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A view of the Nilov Monastery, photographed in 1912 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). The monastery, which stands on an island in Lake Seliger in the Tver region, was founded with a bequest left by St Nilus, Nil or Neil (?-1555), who dwelt there for the last twenty-seven years of his life. Patriarch Job began the construction in 1594, though most of the buildings belong to the 18th and 19th centuries. The current Epiphany Cathedral was built in 1821-25. At first the communists used the monastery for a borstal and then a wartime prison; it afterwards served as a hospital, a retirement home and, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a not very successful tourist hostel. It became a monastery again in 1995, and now the monks farm, keep bees, and welcome pilgrims.

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A view of the monastery of the Nilov Monastery on Stolobny Island in Lake Seliger, Tver, Russia.

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Photo by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

A view of the Nilov Monastery, photographed in 1912 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). The monastery, which stands on an island in Lake Seliger in the Tver region, was founded with a bequest left by St Nilus, Nil or Neil (?-1555), who dwelt there for the last twenty-seven years of his life. Patriarch Job began the construction in 1594, though most of the buildings belong to the 18th and 19th centuries. The current Epiphany Cathedral was built in 1821-25. At first the communists used the monastery for a borstal and then a wartime prison; it afterwards served as a hospital, a retirement home and, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a not very successful tourist hostel. It became a monastery again in 1995, and now the monks farm, keep bees, and welcome pilgrims.

Hymns of the English Church (33) Charles Wesley (19) Hymns (46)

Introduction

The Church of England in the eighteenth century did not encourage its members to think of the dead; they had passed on to an unknown fate, were now sleeping and could be no more to us than an example to follow. In this hymn, Charles Wesley rather daringly invites us to think of the departed Christians as very much alive, and as joined with us in our prayers and songs.

COME, let us join our friends above
That have obtain d the prize,
And on the eagle wings of love
To joys celestial rise:
Let all the saints terrestrial sing,
With those to glory gone
For all the servants of our King,
In earth and heaven, are one.

One family we dwell in him,
One church above, beneath,
Though now divided by the stream,
The narrow stream, of death:
One army of the living God,
To his command we bow;
Part of his host have cross’d the flood,
And part are crossing now.

Ten thousand to their endless home
This solemn moment fly;
And we are to the margin come,
And we expect to die.
His militant embodied host,
With wishful looks we stand,
And long to see that happy coast,
And reach the heavenly land.

Our old companions in distress
We haste again to see,
And eager long for our release,
And full felicity;
Even now by faith we join our hands
With those that went before;
And greet the blood-besprinkled bands
On the eternal shore.

Our spirits too shall quickly join,
Like theirs with glory crown’d,
And shout to see our Captain’s sign,
To hear his trumpet sound.
O that we now might grasp our Guide
O that the word were given
Come, Lord of hosts, the waves divide,
And land us all in heaven!

By Charles Wesley 1707-1788

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Hymns of the English Church (33) Charles Wesley (19) Hymns (46)

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