1. What mean these stones on Jordan's bank? They bear unto our youth
Memorial of the mighty Hand That wrought a path for truth.
By faith we took the forward step into the river's brim,
Upholding in our hearts and hands our covenant with Him.
2. Not for ourselves alone, we strove to gain what we possess,
But that our sons and daughters, too, the name of God should bless.
Oh, may they never lose the song that filled our hearts that day
Jehovah's grace, at Gilgal's cairn, rolled our reproach away.
3. Our Captain urges onward still; more battles lie ahead.
The generations after us will follow where we tread.
And we remain responsible to place at His command—
The pillars of our passage-way into the promised land.
This hymn was commissioned for use at the 2005 Conservative Mennonite Teachers’ Institute. The theme that year was the passage in Joshua 4 about piling up stones as a memorial of God’s work. The author, Darletta Martin, lives in Bedford, Pennsylvania, where she teaches at the Friends Cove Mennonite School. Her other writings include poems, stories, and a recently published biography of her great-grandmother.
Myron Sauder teaches high school English and music at Faith Mennonite High School near his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His other writings include Handbook for Spiritual Hymns (a handbook to the River Brethren hymnal) and The Booklet of Hymns (a sampler from the thousands of Christian hymns written in the twentieth century).
