Your pardon, father, for the jest! But I have never patience with the ills That make intrusion on my happy hours. I know the world is full of evil things, And shudder with the consciousness. I know That care has iron crowns for many brows; That Calvaries are everywhere, whereon Virtue is crucified, and nails and spears Draw guiltless blood; that sorrow sits and drinks At sweetest hearts, till all their life is dry; That gentle spirits on the rack of pain Grow faint or fierce, and pray and curse by turns; That Hell's temptations, clad in Heavenly guise And armed with might, lie evermore in wait Along life's path, giving assault to all-- Fatal to most; that Death stalks through the earth, Choosing his victims, sparing none at last; That in each shadow of a pleasant tree A grief sits sadly sobbing to its leaves; And that beside each fearful soul there walks The dim, gaunt phantom of uncertainty, Bidding it look before, where none may see, And all must go; but I forget it all-- I thrust it from me always when I may; Else I should faint with fear, or drown myself In pity. God forgive me! but I've thought A thousand times that if I had His power. Or He my love, we'd have a different world From this we live in. _Israel_. Those are sinful thoughts, My daughter, and too surely indicate A willful soul, unreconciled to God. _Ruth_. So you have told me often. You have said That God is just, and I have looked around To seek the proof in human lot, in vain. The rain falls kindly on the just man's fields, But on the unjust man's more kindly still; And I have never known the winter's blast, Or the quick lightning, or the pestilence, Make nice discriminations when let slip From God's right hand. _Israel_. 'Tis a great mystery; Yet God is just, and,--blessed be His name!-- Is loving too. I know that I am weak, And that the pathway of His Providence Is on the hills where I may never climb. Therefore my reason yields her hand to Faith, And follows meekly where the angel leads. I see the rich man have his portion here, And Lazarus, in glorified repose, Sleep like a jewel on the breast of Faith In Heaven's broad light. I see that whom God loves He chastens sorely, but I ask not why. I only know that God is just and good: All else is mystery. Why evil lives Within His universe, I may not know. I know it lives, and taints the vital air; And that in ways inscrutable to me-- Yet compromising not His soundless love And boundless power--it lives against His will. _Ruth_.