FALL.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.—Psalm xxxvii. 23, 24.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.—Matthew, vii. 26, 27.
And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel.—Luke, ii. 34.
Poor race of men! said the pitying Spirit,
Dearly ye pay for your primal Fall—
Some flowerets of Eden ye still inherit,
But the trail of the serpent is over them all!
Thomas Moore.
Alas—the evil that we fain would shun
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone;
Our strength to-day
Is but to-morrow’s weakness, prone to fall;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants, all,
Are we alway.
J. G. Whittier.
Grim-hearted world, that look’st with Levite eyes
On those poor fallen by too much faith in man,
She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,
Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,—
Seeking that refuge because foulest vice
More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span
Shuts out the wretched only,—is more free
From all her crimes than thou wilt ever be.
Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet
With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair
Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit’st at meat
With him who made her such, and speak’st him fair,
Leaving God’s wandering lamb the while to bleat
Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air:
Thou hast made prisoned virtue shew more wan
And haggard, than a vice to look upon.
James R. Lowell.