Beguiling are the knobs, push buttons, switches,
Encircling you; no other century
Has so electromagnetized its doings:
Its comings, goings, its communications,
By word, by flash, by wire, throughout earth's nations.
Dear innocents, earth's little ones, inheritors
Of the great multiplicity of man's device;
(Yet first, beyond all else, inheritors
Of every good and perfect gift of God),
Be not bemused by symbols that would claim
A power apart from thought that spells His name!
Even a little prayer is not amiss
When finger on button rests, on switch, on gauge,
When hand lifts up receiver from the hook—
A silent, "We thank You, God!" that this we know:
Power is not in nor issues from dynamo,
From friction, pressure, plunge, velocity,
Gigantic wheel, material mass and stress,
Nor conjured by any force for fallible gain
That breeds no more of pleasure than of pain;
But issues only as intelligence,
Impelled, directed by Almighty Love,
Invisible, yet permeant as air,
Controlled, yet free, as is an eagle's flight,
And kind, as a mother speaking in the night.
