Good News of God Sermons.
December.
It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve,
I went sighing past the Church across the moorland dreary:
“Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
Still in cellar and in garret, and on moorland dreary,
The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain:
Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.”
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,
Beneath the stars across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried, “Listen! Christmas carols even here!
Though thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the stars and snows are singing.
Blind! I live, I love, I reign, and all the nations through
With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing;
Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,
Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it the angels’ singing.”
A Christmas Carol.
The Final Victory. December 1.
I believe that the ancient creed, the eternal gospel, will stand and conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other for eighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing and organising those young anarchic forces which now, unconscious of their parentage, rebel against Him to whom they owe their being.
Yeast, Preface. 1851.
Drifting away. December 2.
They drift away—Ah, God! they drift for ever.
. . . . . .
I watch them drift—the old familiar faces,
Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places.
. . . . . .
Shores, landmarks, beacons drift alike.
Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven
Still fades to night, still blazes into day.
Ah, God! My God! Thou wilt not drift away!