And Enoch lived sixty-and-five years, and begat Methuselah; and Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three-hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three-hundred-sixty-and-five years; and Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. GENESIS v. 21-24.
There is no grander record of a life
Than those brief lines of Holy Writ which tell
So simply, yet so sweetly, Enoch's walk
With Him whose name is Love, who led His child
In peaceful paths, and pointed out to him
The beauties in the road to righteousness;
Who led him, too, amid temptation's snares
And tried him with affliction's rod; but found
At last, his thought so true, so white and pure,
He took him to His breast, and he was not.
Was not! He did not die; for Death's harsh hand
Could not prevail where Sin, its sire, had failed!
Was not! No more his mortal voice was heard
Imploring men to walk with him the way
Where Wisdom leads; but still his glowing words
Burned in their ears, as if he yet were near;
And when we read the story of that man,
Whose virtues are not told, because no vice
Was found, how thrillingly he speaks to us
Of God's highway,—of God, who leads him yet.
