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THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds;
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem;

Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;'
I hear our Lord's beatitudes

And prayer upon the cross.

THE ETERNAL GOGDNESS.

More than your schoolmen teach, within

Myself, alas! I know;

Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,

Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,
And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;

I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin:

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look when cherubim

And seraphs may not see,

But nothing can be good in Him

Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below

I dare not throne above;

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THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

I know not of His hate-I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments, too, are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long;
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

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And so beside the Silent Sea

I wait the muffled oar;

No harm from Him can come to me

On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift

Their fronded palms in air;

I only know I cannot drift

Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen

Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee!

J. G. WHITTIER.

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GROWING IN GRACE.

GROWING IN GRACE.

THIS did not once so trouble me
That better I could not love Thee;
But now I feel and know,

That only when we love, we find
How far our hearts remain behind

The love they should bestow.
While we had little care to call
On Thee, and scarcely prayed at all,
We seemed enough to pray:
But now we only think with shame
How seldom to Thy glorious name
Our lips their offerings pay.
And when we gave yet slighter heed
Unto our brother's suffering need,
Our hearts reproached us then
Not half so much as now, that we
With such a careless eye can see

The woes and wants of men.
In doing is this knowledge won,
To see what yet remains undone;