II. Yet as of old, when, meekly "doing good," He fed a blind and selfish multitude, And even the poor companions of His lot With their dim earthly vision knew Him not, How ill are His high teachings understood Where He hath spoken Liberty, the priest At His own altar binds the chain anew; Where He hath bidden to Life's equal feast, The starving many wait upon the few; Where He hath spoken Peace, His name hath been The loudest war-cry of contending men; Priests, pale with vigils, in His name have blessed The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest, Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine, And crossed its blazon with the holy sign; Yea, in His name who bade the erring live, And daily taught His lesson, to forgive! Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel; And, with His words of mercy on their lips, Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burning grips, And the grim horror of the straining wheel; Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's limb, Who saw before his searing eyeballs swim The image of their Christ in cruel zeal, Through the black torment-smoke, held mockingly to him! III. The blood which mingled with the desert sand, And beaded with its red and ghastly dew The vines and olives of the Holy Land; The shrieking curses of the hunted Jew; The white-sown bones of heretics, where'er They sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear; Goa's dark dungeons, Malta's sea-washed cell, Where with the hymns the ghostly fathers sung Mingled the groans by subtle torture wrung, Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek of hell! The midnight of Bartholomew, the stake Of Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flame Which Calvin kindled by Geneva's lake; New England's scaffold, and the priestly sneer Which mocked its victims in that hour of fear, When guilt itself a human tear might claim,-- Bear witness, O Thou wronged and merciful One! That Earth's most hateful crimes have in Thy name been done! IV. Thank God! that I have lived to see the time When the great truth begins at last to find An utterance from the deep heart of mankind, Earnest and clear, that all Revenge is Crime, That man is holier than a creed, that all Restraint upon him must consult his good, Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall, And Love look in upon his solitude. The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught Through long, dark centuries its way hath wrought Into the common mind and popular thought; And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore The humble fishers listened with hushed oar, Have found an echo in the general heart, And of the public faith become a living part.