"Jesus saith," and His deep Saying who shall rightly understand,
Rescued from the grasp of ages, risen from its grave of sand?
Who shall read its mystic meaning, who explain its import high:
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there
am I"?
Does it mean the stone-built altar, and the cleft-wood for its fire,
That with sacrificial offering shall the soul to God aspire,
Purged and pure from sin's defilement, lifting holy hands on high,
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there
am I"?
Does it mean that toil and action are the price that man shall pay,
Striving the strait gait to enter, pressing on the narrow way,
Clearing it from shade and hindrance, with strong arm and purpose high,
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there
am I"?
Does it mean that he who seeketh may Thy presence always see
In the common things around him, in the stone and in the tree,
Underlying, all-pervading, Soul of Nature, ever nigh,
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there
am I"?
Yea, in all our work and worship, in our quiet, in our strife,
In the daily, busy handwork, in the soul's most ardent life,
Each may read his own true meaning of the Saying deep and high,
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there
am I."
--Mrs. Henry B. Smith.
He's true to God, who's true to man; wherever wrong is done,
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun,
That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race.
--James Russell Lowell.