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GOD LEADETH HIS OWN.

GOD LEADETH HIS OWN.

How FEW who, from their youthful days,

Look on to what their life may
Painting the visions of the way

be;

In colors soft, and bright, and free;
How few who to such paths have brought

The hopes and dreams of early thought!
For God through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.

The eager hearts, the souls of fire,
Who pant to toil for God and man;
And view with eyes of keen desire,

The upland way of toil and pain;
Almost with scorn they think of rest,
Of holy calm, of tranquil breast;

But God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.

A lowlier task on them is laid—

With love to make the labor light;

And there their beauty they must shed
On quiet homes, and lost to sight,

Changed are their visions bright and fair,

GOD LEADETH HIS OWN.

Yet calm and still they labor there;

For God, through ways they have not known, Will lead His own.

The gentle heart that thinks with pain,

It scarce can lowliest tasks fulfill, And if it dared its life to scan,

Would ask but pathway low and still— Often such lowly heart is brought

To act with power beyond its thought:

For God, through ways they have not known, Will lead His own.

And they, the bright, who long to prove,
In joyous path, in cloudless lot,

How fresh from earth their grateful love
Can spring without a stain or spot-

Often such youthful heart is given

The path of grief to walk to Heaven;

For God, through ways they have not known Will lead His own.

What matter what the path shall be?
The end is clear and bright to view;
We know that we a strength shall see,
Whate'er the day may bring to do.
We see the end, the house of God,

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52

HERE AM I.

But not the path to that abode ;

For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.

HERE AM I.

"ALLAH, Allah!" cried the sick man,
Racked with pain the long night through;
Till with prayer his heart grew tender,
Till his lips like honey grew.

But at morning came the Tempter;
Said, "Call louder, child of Pain!
See if Allah ever hear, or answers,
'Here I am!' again.”

Like a stab the cruel cavil ·

Through his brain and pulses went;

To his heart an icy coldness,

And his brain a darkness sent.

Then before him stood Elias;

Says, "My child, why thus dismayed?

Dost repent thy former fervor?

Is thy soul of prayer afraid?"

DIFFERENT PATHS.

"Ah!" he cried, "I've called so often;
Never heard the 'Here am I,'
And I thought God will not pity,
Will not turn on me His eye."

Then the grave Elias answered,
"God said, 'Rise, Elias! go
Speak to him, the sorely tempted;
Lift him from his gulf of woe.

"Tell him that his very longing
Is itself an answering cry;

That his prayer, "Come gracious Allah!"
Is my answer, “Here am I!”,

"Every inmost aspiration

Is God's angel, undefiled;

And in every 'O my Father!'

Slumbers deep a 'Here, my child!""

DIFFERENT PATHS.

I LATELY talked with one who strove
To show that all my way was dim,
That his alone the road to heaven;
And thus it was I answered him :

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DIFFERENT PATHS.

"Strike not away the staff I hold,

You cannot give me yours, dear friend! Up the steep hill our paths are set,

In different ways, to one sure end.

"What though with eagle glance upfixed
On heights beyond our mortal ken,
You tread the broad, sure stones of Faith
More firmly than do weaker men;

"To each according to his strength;
But as we leave the plains below,
Let us carve out a wider stair,

And broader pathway through the snow.

"And when upon the golden crest
We stand at last together, freed

From mists that circle round the base,
And clouds that but obscure our creed,

"We shall perceive that, though our steps Have wandered wide apart, dear friend,

No pathway can be wholly wrong

That tends unto one perfect end."