Have you seen the falling raindrops, like a blessing glad and sweet,
On the rock and on the meadow, on the thistle and the wheat?
What a sermon's in the downpour falling out of God's own hand!
Read the lesson of the rainfall, as it nourishes the land.
Maybe they're not strong on logic, maybe they have much to learn,
But it seems if Love created, Hate cannot creation spurn;
And the rain like benediction and the sunshine glad and bright,
Fills them with a hope unbounded and a faith that all is right.
Through vicissitude and conflict, as this old world wheels and turns,
Ever searching, tearful, calling, man for his Creator yearns;
And I know the Father's watching with a love so great and wide
That He never could be happy with a pleading soul outside.
THE WAIF
Dark-orbed dear little miss,
Torn are your shoes, and the clothes
Bagged and thin that you wear;
How you live nobody knows.
Strange little waif of the slums,
Thrifty and business-like, too,
Plying your trade with the rest
Of the ragged, outcast crew;
Rushing about in the throng,
Calling your wares in the cold;
O child, such a heart as yours
Is made of God's purest gold!
Brave little buffeted ship,
Battered and blown in life's gale,
Where is your port in the storm?
To what refuge do you sail?
Born of some drab of the street
Down where the red beacons burn,
May God guide ever your way—
Free from sin's shoals may you turn.