PERPLEXITIES.
“Nothing can possibly fail, because the sole true end or object is redemption of man; and this is attained ever and for ever, with no exception, in good and evil, in each largest and most trivial thing.”—James Hinton.
How crooked is our life! Its ins and outs
We can not scan;
How often do we say, “That’s just too late
And spoils our plan.”
How often we perplex ourselves, because
Of efforts vain,
And try, without success, to make things come
Round right again.
How disappointment will not let us hold
The course we would,
But throws us off from every hoped-for boon
That we think good.
How little things perplex our onward path
From day to day,
Seeming to render futile all our work,
Stopping our way.
Oh! could this crooked life be straightened out,
And every bit
Met fairly by another, point to point
In sequence fit;
The difficulties then were not so hard
To meet and bear,
Were there a carrying on of some wise plan,
And purpose fair.
What if the Master’s plan be utter good,
Too vast, in sooth,
For us to grasp it with our puny powers?
In this grand truth,
For such it is—although things look not so
To our weak sight—
Lies the true meaning of these crooked things
If read aright.
The source of all the discord that we feel,
Is that our will
Is not made one with God’s, and so we strive
To make life still
A thing that we call good—a little good
That we can know;
Instead of in our ignorance content
God’s way to go.