With strength of righteous purpose in the heart What cause to fear for consequence of deed? God guideth then, not we; nor do we need To care for aught but that we play our part. Most simple trust is often highest art. The issue we would fly may be a seed Ordained by God to bear our souls a meed Of peace that no self-judging could impart. "All things work good for him who trusteth God!" Doth God not love us with a longing love To make us happy, and hath he not sight From end to end of our short earthly road? This, Lord, I hold--aye, _know_ that thou wouldst move The world to lead one trusting soul aright. --Edward Harding. RELIGIOUS INFIDELS How many chatterers of a creed Think doubt the gravest sin, Unmindful of her double birth-- For worry is her twin. Ah! Christian atheism seems The most insulting kind, For, though the tongue says, God is love, The heart is deaf and blind. How he who marks the sparrow's fall Must be aggrieved to see These loud lip-champions manifest Such infidelity! Each fretful line upon their brow, Dug by the plow of care, Is treason to their pledge of faith And satire on their prayer. O just to hold, without one fear, The strong, warm Hand above, With orthodoxy of the heart-- The childlike creed of love! None such can be a heretic; Nay, only he forsooth Who lives the falsity of doubt, But prates the cant of truth. --Frederic Lawrence Knowles. Worry and Fret were two little men That knocked at my door again and again. "O pray let us in, but to tarry a night, And we will be off with the dawning of light." At last, moved to pity, I opened the door To shelter these travelers, hungry and poor; But when on the morrow I bade them "Adieu," They said, quite unmoved, "We'll tarry with you." And, deaf to entreaty and callous to threat, These troublesome guests abide with me yet. Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings: I know that God is good! --John Greenleaf Whittier. MAKE THY WAY MINE Father, hold thou my hand; The way is steep; I cannot see the path my feet must keep, I cannot tell, so dark the tangled way, Where next to step. O stay; Come close; take both my hands in thine; Make thy way mine! Lead me. I may not stay; I must move on; but oh, the way! I must be brave and go, Step forward in the dark, nor know If I shall reach the goal at all-- If I shall fall. Take thou my hand. Take it! Thou knowest best How I should go, and all the rest I cannot, cannot see: Lead me: I hold my hands to thee; I own no will but thine; Make thy way mine! MY PSALM