But fresh and green from the rotting roots Of primal forests the young growth shoots; From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs. For His judgments still are a mighty deep, And the eyes of His providence never sleep When the night is darkest He gives the morn; When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn! In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, Shaping his creed at the forge of thought; And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent The iron links of his argument, Which strove to grasp in its mighty span The purpose of God and the fate of man Yet faithful still, in his daily round To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found, The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart. Had he not seen in the solitudes Of his deep and dark Northampton woods A vision of love about him fall? Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, But the tenderer glory that rests on them Who walk in the New Jerusalem, Where never the sun nor moon are known, But the Lord and His love are the light alone And watching the sweet, still countenance Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, Had he not treasured each broken word Of the mystical wonder seen and heard; And loved the beautiful dreamer more That thus to the desert of earth she bore Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore? As the barley-winnower, holding with pain Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, So he who had waited long to hear The sound of the Spirit drawing near, Like that which the son of Iddo heard When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, Felt the answer of prayer, at last, As over his church the afflatus passed, Breaking its sleep as breezes break To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake. At first a tremor of silent fear, The creep of the flesh at danger near, A vague foreboding and discontent, Over the hearts of the people went. All nature warned in sounds and signs The wind in the tops of the forest pines In the name of the Highest called to prayer, As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. Through ceiled chambers of secret sin Sudden and strong the light shone in; A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs Startled the man of title-deeds; The trembling hand of the worldling shook The dust of years from the Holy Book; And the psalms of David, forgotten long, Took the place of the scoffer's song.