Questions & Answers

I saw a great white throne and One thereon Before whose face all earth-things fled away! Thrice blessed seer, to lift our gaze upon Reality and the immortal day When earth, the so-called heaven, and all their host Pass—as a ghostly shade—before the light; And their presumptuous power and idle boast, Disproved, vanish before the awakened sight. Nor had thy consciousness one place where aught Unlike its perfect Maker might appear.

In the garden, O my Saviour, Did you walk alone that night, While the sweat and tears of anguish Tried to tell you sin was might, While near by your loved disciples Slept because they could not know Of the travail you must suffer That you might the nations show How to travel ever upward, How to the true stature grow? No, you knew that God, the Father, Was upholding with His love, That He never could forsake you— You this to the world must prove. You must teach the world this lesson, That the senses always lie.

Dear fearful heart, thou canst not fall, Though rugged seems the road before thee; He marks the way for thee and all; Press on! His watchful eye is o'er thee— Thou canst not fall. Thy faltering feet may stumble, still Thou canst not fall, Love's arms enfold thee; Obedient to the Father's will, His angel-messengers uphold thee— Thou canst not fall.

' T is blindness to regard earth's want and woe As part or purpose of the eternal plan; All substance—Life and Truth and Love and good— Sustains God's man. 'T is blasphemy to say God sends the storm That rends and tears and kills and causes pain; Only the gentle healing touch of Love Comes with God's rain.

Were God not good to me, what would life mean? A round of hopeless days, of dreary care— My thought so filled with fear I might not dare Lift it above the sorrowful routine Of years that should be beautiful, serene. But God is good, and so my thought is free; His loving-kindness meets my every need; It wipes away the doubts of form and creed.

All day the crowd had followed him; And now the evening sky grew dim, And tender was his heart; One questioned him with anxious face; And in that barren, desert place He answered with a royal grace: They need not now depart. The hungering people heard him speak And silent grew, and strangely meek, At what they each did see— A meager basket, fish, and bread, A gratefully inclined head— And heard the words so sweetly said: Bring that ye have to me.

When through the power of prayer we wake to know Love, like the sunrise, fills the world with light And evil's seeming darkness is not might, That each one shares his own in others' good, Then as these truths are better understood, The centuries of erring human will Fade dimly as we climb His holy hill.

Our Father, humbly now we come to Thee, Yearning to reach the plane of purity, Seeking the way those other students trod When Jesus taught them to commune with God. Let us not lightly breathe this prayer of Soul, But touch its depths profound, so that the goal Of sinless sense be sighted and attained, And Soul's reflection pure be unrestrained.

Egypt was heavy with burden of wars, And dark with a cloud of rebellings, But the children of Israel closed their doors, And there was light in their dwellings. There are wars and rumors of war to-day, But their signal only arouses The soldiers of Truth to watch and pray That His light remain in their houses.

But most I pray Thee for a humble heart, Content to spend its all in loving. I Would be like that sweet spring which offers up Its pebbled chalice to the traveler's lips, Nor cares who stoops to taste its wayside wine, So that it quenches some compelling thirst, Cleanses some sweaty toiler's dusty brow, Or laves a pilgrim's weary, stone-bruised feet.