Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
With few friends to greet me,
Than when reeve and squire were seen, Riding out from Aberdeen,
With bared heads, to meet me.
"When each good wife, o'er and o'er, Blessed me as I passed her door; And the snooded daughter,
Through her casement glancing down, Smiled on him who bore renown From red fields of slaughter.
"Hard to feel the stranger's scoff, Hard the old friend's falling off, Hard to learn forgiving: But the Lord his own rewards, And his love with theirs accords
Warm and fresh and living.
Through this dark and stormy night, Faith beholds a feeble light,
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest,
For the full day-breaking !".
So the Laird of Ury said,
Turning slow his horse's head
Towards the Tolbooth prison,
Where, through iron gates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word
Preach of Christ arisen!
Not in vain, Confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told,
Of thy day of trial;
Every age on him who strays From its broad and beaten ways Pours its seven-fold vial.
Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear,
O'er the rabble's laughter;
And, while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter.
Knowing this, that never yet Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow; After hands shall sow the seed, After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.
Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,
Must the moral pioneer
From the Future borrow;
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow!
Behold a christian!-and without the fires
The founder of that name alone inspires,
Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet, To make the shining prodigy complete, Whoever boasts that name, behold a cheat!
Were Love, in these, the world's last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears,
The churches warmed, they would no longer hold. Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold; Relenting forms would lose their power, or cease; And e'en the dipt and sprinkled live in peace; Each heart would quit its prison in the breast, And flow in free communion with the rest, The statesman skilled in projects dark and deep, Might burn his useless Machiavel, and sleep; His budget, often filled, yet always poor, Might swing at ease behind his study door, No longer prey upon our annual rents,
Or scare the nation with its big contents; Disbanded legions freely might depart, And slaying man would cease to be an art. No learned disputants would take the field, Sure not to conquer and sure not to yield; Both sides deceived, if rightly understood; Pelting each other for the public good. Did charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth and love.
There is a tale by Jesus told;
It charmed the listeners round of old- A tale of that benignant man,
Who, when the proud passed heedless by, Supplied what kindness could supply— The good Samaritan.
Robbed, naked, wounded, by the way The suffering, sinking traveler lay; Swift to his aid his helper ran, Bound up his wounds with tender care, Food, raiment, home, provided there- The good Samaritan
And still that tale of pathos fills
The awakened heart; still touches, thrills With sympathy's own talisman,
The springs of generous thought to move, And bids us imitate and love
That good Samaritan.
A wider field is ours; not one Stripped, wounded, destitute, alone;
But man in crowds neglected, man
In congregated wo doth call,
That each should be to each-to all, A good Samaritan.
His praise, the Man of great benevolence.
Who pressed thee, Chari y to his glowing heart,
And to thy gentle bidding, made his feet
Was most in harmony with heaven: as one Sole family of brothers, sisters, firiends; One in their origin, one in their rights
To all the common gifts of providence,
And in their hopes, their joys and sorrows one, He viewed the universal human race.
He needed not a law of state, to force Grudging submission to the laws of God; The law of Love was in his heart alive : What he possessed, he counted not his own, But like a faithful steward, in a house Of public alms, what freely he received, He freely gave! distributing to all The helpless, the last mite beyond his own Temperate support, and reckoning still the gift But justice, due to want, and so it was ; Although the world, with compliment not ill Applied, adorned it with a fairer name.
Nor did he wait till to his door the voice Of supplication came, but went abroad, With foot as silent as the starry dews, In search of misery that pined unseen, And would not ask. And who can tell what sights He saw! what groans he heard in that cold world Below! where Sin in league with gloomy Death Marched daily through the length and breadth of all The land, wasting at will, and making earth, Fair Earth! a lazar-house, a dungeon dark; Where disappointment fed on ruined Hope; Where Guilt, worn out, leaned on the triple edge Of want, remorse, despair; where cruelty Reached forth a cup of wormwood to the lips Of sorrow, that to deeper sorrow wailed; Where Mockerv, and Disease, and Poverty,
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