If I ascend to highest heights;
if the Spirit brings Jesus to me in unaccountable brilliance,
and the glass is wiped clear of the greater part of its darkness,

     Jesus is fairer.

If I am permitted to see what I can only call the beauty of Jesus 

in the saintliest saint,

     Jesus is fairer.

If I happen upon a grand doxology,

in which the best of the poets inscribes with the best of his best,

     Jesus is fairer.

If I could but once speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

fill with a rush of unqualified love,

     

    Jesus is fairer, and the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

If I could compress the beauties of all God's handiwork

into one transcendent handful,

     Jesus is fairer.

If, in another handful, I could combine Sebastian Bach, Michelangelo,

Brahms, Vermeer, Rembrandt, a heaven full of angel voices,

a world of newly born babies, a galaxy of weavers, potters,

sleight-of-toe ballerinas -

If I could hold these handfuls to my hungry heart and be filled with their glory,

     Jesus is fairer.

Dear Name! 

the rock on which I build,

My shield and hiding-place,

My never-failing treasury, filled

with boundless stores of grace.

Jesus, my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,

My Prophet, Priest and King,

My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,

Accept the praise I bring.

_______

Johannes Vermeer, "Delft"

Dumbfounded Praying, Harold M. Best, Wifp&Stock Pub., Eugene Oregon

John Newton, Olney Hymns