A luster pure and sweet;
And still it leads, as once it led,
To the Messiah’s feet.”
An even more remarkable Unitarian was Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), the great physician, but even greater poet. He had the reputation of being rather radical in his religious views; he was a humorist whom human life rather amused than impressed seriously (though he was tender enough to human suffering), but, when a hymn seemed an appropriate close for one of his genial essays, he could write,
“Lord of all being, throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near.”
But unless in the deeper depths of his soul there still lingered faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, how could he write,
“O Love divine, that stooped to share