’Tis nothing thou hast given; then add thy tears For a long race of unrepenting years; ’Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give; Then add those may-be years thou hast to live; Yet nothing still; then poor and naked come; Thy Father will receive his unthrift home, And thy blest Saviour’s blood discharge the mighty sum. _Dryden._ Look humbly upward, see His will disclose The forfeit first, and then the fine impose; A mulct thy poverty could never pay, Had not eternal wisdom found the way, And with celestial wealth supplied thy store; His justice makes the fine, His mercy quits the score. See God descending in the human frame; The offended suffering in the offender’s name: All thy misdeeds to Him imputed see, And all his righteousness devolved on thee. _Dryden._ Thou, rather than thy justice should be stained, Did stain the cross. * * * * * O, what a groan was there! a groan not His. He seized our dreadful right; the load sustained, And heaved the mountain from a guilty world. _Young._ What needs my blood, since thine will do, To pay the debt to justice due? O, tender mercy’s art divine! Thy sorrow proves the cure of mine! Thy dropping wounds, thy woeful smart, Allay the bleedings of my heart: Thy death, in death’s extreme of pain, Restores my soul to life again! _Parnell._ The Son of God Only begotten, and well-beloved, between Men and His Father’s justice interposed; Put human nature on, His wrath sustained, And in their name suffered, obeyed, and died; Making His soul an offering for sin, Just for unjust, and innocence for guilt. * * * * * Thus Truth with Mercy met, and Righteousness, Stooping from highest heaven, embraced fair Peace, That walked the earth in fellowship and love. _Pollok._ God’s own son, unblemished victim, gave Himself a sacrifice, and by His blood, Upon the cross poured forth, washed out the stain Of primal sin. _Samuel Hayes._ And shall the sinful heart, alone, Behold, unmoved, the _atoning_ hour, When Nature trembles on her throne, And death resigns his iron power? O, shall the heart,--whose sinfulness Gave keenness to His sore distress, And added to His tears of blood-- Refuse its trembling gratitude? _Whittier._