The homely words--how often read!
How seldom fully known:
"Which father of you, asked for bread,
Would give his son a stone?"
How oft has bitter tear been shed,
And heaved how many a groan,
Because thou wouldst not give for bread
The thing that was a stone!
How oft the child thou wouldst have fed
Thy gift away has thrown;
He prayed, thou heardst, and gavest bread--
He cried, "It is a stone!"
Lord, if I ask in doubt and dread,
Lest I be left to moan,
Am I not he, who, asked for bread,
Would give his son a stone?
--George Macdonald.