O it is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his part
Upon this battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart!
He hides himself so wondrously,
As though there were no God;
He is least seen when all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.
Or He deserts us at the hour
The fight is all but lost;
And seems to leave us to ourselves
Just when we need him most.
Yes, there is less to try our faith,
In our mysterious creed,
Than in the godless look of earth
In these our hours of need.
Ill masters good, good seems to change
To ill with greatest ease;
And, worst of all, the good with good
Is at cross purposes.
It is not so, but so it looks,
And we lose courage then;
And doubts will come if God hath kept
His promises to men.
Ah! God is other than we think;
His ways are far above;
Far beyond reason's height, and reached
Only by childlike love.
The look, the fashion, of God's ways
Love's lifelong study are;
She can be bold, and guess, and act
When reason would not dare.
She has a prudence of her own;
Her step is firm and free.
Yet there is cautious science, too
In her simplicity.
Workman of God! oh, lose not heart,
But learn what God is like,
And in the darkest battle-field,
Thou shalt know where to strike.
Thrice blest is he to whom is given
The instinct that can tell
That God is on the field when he
Is most invisible.
Blest, too, is he who can divine
Where real right doth lie,
And dares to take the side that seems
Wrong to man's blindfold eye.
Then learn to scorn the praise of men
And learn to lose with God;
For Jesus won the world through shame
And beckons thee his road.
God's glory is a wondrous thing,
Most strange in all its ways,
And, of all things on earth, least like
What men agree to praise.
God's justice is a bed where we
Our anxious hearts may lay,
And, weary with ourselves, may sleep
Our discontent away.
For right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
--Frederick William Faber.
Let us believe
That there is hope for all the hearts that grieve;
That somewhere night
Drifts to a morning beautiful with light,
And that the wrong
Though now it triumphs, wields no scepter long.
But right will reign
Throned where the waves of error beat in vain.
--Frank L. Stanton.
To change and change is life; to move and never rest;
Not what we are, but what we hope, is best.
--James Russell Lowell.