"My Father! everpresent, everwise, and everkind,—
The Life that pulses at my heart, the Light within my mind,—
My Maker, Guardian, Guide, and God, my never-failing Friend,
Who hitherto hast blest me, and wilt bless me to the end,—
How should I not acknowledge Thee in all my words and ways,
And bring my doubts to Thee in prayer, the prayer that turns to praise?
How can I cease to trust Thee, who hast guided me so long,
And been from earliest childhood to old age my strength and song?
II.
"My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three,
The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,—
What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic plan
Of Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man,
And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of all
Redeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall,
As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love,
By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove!
III.
"My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child,
As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,—
O Father, in this evil day when atheism is found
Dropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground,
Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forget
The Friend that hitherto hath helped me—and shall help me yet?
Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,—
Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot?
IV.
"Ho! Christian soldier,—to the front! and boldly speak aloud
The dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,—
That every inch and every instant we are guided well
By Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell;
That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime,
And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time,
Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the cause
For every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws!
V.
"A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of love
Shall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above,
Where He (who being God of old became our brother here)
Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere,
Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the Son
Shall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won;
And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed race
Shall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!"
For a third, my testimony as to the wonders that surround us: I have called this poem The Infinities.