Giant Hours with Poet Preachers

by William L. Stidger

"But one thing is needful; and ye shall be true
To yourself and the goal and the God that ye seek;
Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you
If ye love one another, if your love be not weak!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

For he knew the heart hunger for God that was in every human breast:

"I am full-fed, and yet
I hunger!
Who set this fiercer famine in my maw?
Who set this fiercer hunger in my heart?"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

From "Drake" comes that scintillating line: "A scribble of God's finger in the sky"; and an admonition to the preacher: "Thou art God's minister, not God's oracle!"

Nor did he forget that man, in his search for God, is, after all, but man, and weak! So from "Tales of a Mermaid Tavern":

"… and of that other Ocean
Where all men sail so blindly, and misjudge
Their friends, their charts, their storms, their stars, their
God!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Even like unto "Bo'sin Bill," who was and is a prevalent type, but not a serious type—that man who claims to be an atheist, but in times of stress, like unto us all, turns to God. And what humorous creatures we are! Enough to make God smile, if he did not love us so much: