TRUTH.
The truth of the Lord endureth for ever.—Psalm cxvii. 2.
Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.—Proverbs, xxiii. 23.
Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour.—Zechariah, viii. 16.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.—John, xiv. 6.
When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.—John, xvi. 13.
It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.—I. John, v. 6.
Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie,
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
Herbert.
Truth, in her pure simplicity, wants art
To put a feigned blush on.
John Ford.
Defend the truth; for that who will not die,
A coward is, and gives himself the lie.
Thomas Randolph.
These furies fell, which turn the world to ruth,
Both Envy, Strife, and Slander, her appear,
In dungeon dark they long enclosed Truth,
But time at length did loose his daughter dear,
And sets aloft that sacred lady bright,
Who things long hid reveals and brings to light.
Though Strife wake her, though Envy eat her heart,
The innocent though Slander rend and spoil:
Yet Time will come, and take this lady’s part,
And break her bands and bring her foes to foil.
Despair not then, though Truth be hidden oft,
Because at length, she shall be set aloft.
Whitney.
God hath how sent His living oracle
Into the world to teach His final will,
And sends His Spirit of truth henceforth to dwell
In pious hearts: and inward oracle
To all truth requisite for men to know.
Milton.
For error and mistake are infinite,
But truth has but one way to be i’ th’ right:
As numbers may t’ infinity be grown,
But never be reduc’d to less than one.
Butler.
Marble and recording brass decay,
And like the ’graver’s memory, pass away;
The works of man inherit, as is just,
Their author’s frailty, and return to dust;
But truth divine for ever stands secure,
Its head is guarded, as its base is sure;
Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years,
The pillar of the eternal plan appears;
The raving storm and dashing wave defies,
Built by that Architect who built the skies.
Cowper.
But what is Truth? ’Twas Pilate’s question, put
To Truth itself, that deigned him no reply.
And wherefore? Will not God impart His light
To them that ask it? Freely,—’tis His joy,
His glory, and His nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Our negligent enquirer, not a spark.
Cowper.
All truth is precious, if not all divine,
And what dilates the powers must needs refine.
Cowper.
So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,
Though one did fling the fire,
Heaven flowed upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.
Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one great garden show’d,
And thro’ the wreaths of floating dark upcurl’d
Rare sunrise flow’d.
Tennyson.
Dark, dark, yea, irrecoverably dark,
Is the soul’s eye; yet how it strives and battles
Through the impenetrable gloom to fix
That master light, the secret truth of things,
Which is the body of the infinite God.
Arthur H. Hallam.
Searching the skiey depths all night in vain,
The starry seer hath known this mystery—
That the sky orb, which over half the sky
Hath baulked his chase, and mocked his utmost pain
If (haply while the daylight poured amain
Into the empty concave of the night)
Hath stepped into his glass, as clear to sight
As the one tree that stars a glassy plain,
So is it known that some secretive Truth,
Which Thought and Patience strove in vain to find,
Just when Despair and Doubt were swallowing all,
Hath dropped into the heart without a call,
Conspicuous as a Fire, and sweet as Youth,
An everlasting stronghold to the mind.
Thomas Burbidge.
Not seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the morn;
Not seldom evening, in the west,
Sinks smilingly forsworn.
The smoothest seas will sometimes prove
To the confiding bark untrue;
And if she trust the stars above,
They can be treacherous too.
The umbrageous oak, in pomp outspread,
Full oft, when storms the welkin rend,
Draws lightning down upon the head
It promised to defend.
But Thou art true, incarnate Lord!
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die,
Thy smile is sure, Thy plighted word
No change can falsify.
Wordsworth.
That one half creation is to know
Luxurious joy, and others only woe,
And so go down into the common tomb
With none to question their unequal doom?
Shall we give credit to a thought so fond?
Ah! no—the world beyond—the world beyond!
There shall the desolate heart regain its own!
There the oppressed shall stand before God’s throne!
There, when the tangled web is all explained,
Wrong suffered, pain inflicted, grief disdained,
Man’s proud, mistaken judgments and false scorn
Shall melt, like mists before the uprising morn,
And holy truth stand forth, serenely bright,
In the rich flood of God’s eternal light!
Mrs. Norton.
It is not in the heart of thought
Nor in the breast of care,
That truth its dwelling-place has sought,
For all is sterile there:
Nor is it in the mind where gay
Delusive visions throng,
That chastening truth can find a way
Its glittering dreams among:
Yet as within the desert far,
There are reflections given
Of light, so in the heart there are
Remembrances of Heaven.
W. Anderson.
Oh! truth abideth with Him everywhere;
And lovely is her brow, albeit too bright
For earthly eye, she veils her aspect fair,
Lest bold vain men be blasted with its light,
Beneath a diverse visage, now austere,
Now lovely, suited to the gazer’s sight.
He who upon her naked face might bear
To look, would know her heavenly and divine,
And Deity itself in her revere—
Thy soul, oh Man! is her especial shrine;
There find her, thou unto thyself shalt wake,
And to thy God; for heaven is her’s and thine:
Seek her in youth, nor yet in age forsake.
J. A. Heraud.
Immortal Truth! by inspiration taught,
Thou spurn’st the servile chains of human art;
In native majesty arrayed, thou shed’st
Thy radiant beams through all this vale below;
Thy piercing voice resounds through distant climes,
By all distinguished, and by all adored.
Charles Jenner.
Truth is in each flower
As well as in the solemnest things of God.
Truth is the voice of Nature and of Time—
Truth is the startling monitor within us—
Nought is without it, it comes from the stars,
The golden sun, and every breeze that blows—
Truth, it is God! and God is everywhere!
William Thomson Bacon.