Giant Hours with Poet PreachersStidger, William L. (William Le Roy)
Religion
Giant Hours with Poet Preachers
Stidger, William L. (William Le Roy)
American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism; English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
"You will come, my dearest, truest?
Come, my sovereign queen of ten:
My blue sky will then be bluest;
My white rose be whitest then."
GREAT MOMENTS WITH CHRIST
Miller had a profound, deep, sincere love for Christ, and more than any
poet I know did he express with deep insight and with deeper sweetness
the great moments in Christ's life. He made these great moments human.
He brings them near to us, so that we see them more clearly. He makes
them warm our hearts, and we feel that Christ's words are truly our
words in this, our own day. In that great scene where Christ blessed
little children, who has ever made it sweeter and nearer and warmer
with human touch?
"Then reaching his hands, he said, lowly,
'Of such is my Kingdom,' and then
Took the little brown babes in the holy
White hands of the Saviour of Men;
"Held them close to his heart and caressed them,
Put his face down to theirs as in prayer,
Put their hands to his neck and so blessed them
With baby-hands hid in his hair."
The scene with the woman taken in adultery he has also made human and
near in these lines, called "Charity":
"Who now shall accuse and arraign us?
What man shall condemn and disown?
Since Christ has said only the stainless
Shall cast at his fellows a stone?"
That Jesus Christ died for the world, that Calvary had more meaning for
humanity than anything else that has ever happened, Miller put in four
lines:
"Look starward! stand far, and unearthy,
Free souled as a banner unfurled.
Be worthy! O, brother, be worthy!
For a God was the price of the world!"
He caught Christ's teaching, and the whole gist of the New Testament
expressed in that immortal phrase "Judge not," and he wrote some lines
that have been on the lips of man the world over, and shall continue to
be as long as men speak poetry. A unique pleasure was mine on this
afternoon. I had noticed something that Mrs. Miller had not noticed in
this great poem. She quoted it to us:
"In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still;
In men whom men pronounce Divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I hesitate to draw the line
Between the two, where God has not!"
Miller wrote it that way when he first wrote it, in his younger days.
It was natural for Mrs. Miller to quote it that way. But I had
discovered in his revised and complete poems that he had changed a
significant phrase in that great verse. He had said, "I do not dare,"
in the fifth line, instead of "I hesitate." His mature years had made
him say, "I do not dare to draw the line!"
GOD AND HEAVEN
He knew that heaven and God were near to humanity and earth. He was not
afraid of death. He teaches us all Christian courage in this line of
thought. He knew that his "Greek Heights" were very near to heaven
because he knew that anywhere is near to heaven to the believer:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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