God holds the key of all unknown,
And I am glad.
If other hands should hold the key,
Or if he trusted it to me,
I might be sad.
What if to-morrow's cares were here
Without its rest?
I'd rather he unlock the day,
And as the hours swing open say,
"Thy will be best."
The very dimness of my sight
Makes me secure;
For groping in my misty way,
I feel his hand; I hear him say,
"My help is sure."
I cannot read his future plan,
But this I know:
I have the smiling of his face,
And all the refuge of his grace,
While here below.
Enough; this covers all my want,
And so I rest;
For what I cannot he can see,
And in his care I sure shall be
Forever blest.
--John Parker.
Forever, from the hand that takes
One blessing from us, others fall;
And soon or late our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all.
--John Greenleaf Whittier.
Nothing pays but God,
Served--in work obscure done honestly,
Or vote for truth unpopular, or faith maintained
To ruinous convictions.
--James Russell Lowell.
He did God's will, to him all one,
If on the earth or in the sun.
--Robert Browning.
I am
Part of that Power, not understood,
Which always wills the bad
And always works the good.
(Mephistopheles, in Faust.)
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
I have no answer, for myself or thee,
Save that I learned beside my mother's knee:
"All is of God that is, and is to be;
And God is good." Let this suffice us still,
Resting in childlike trust upon his will
Who moves to his great ends unthwarted by the ill.
--John Greenleaf Whittier.
He knows, he loves, he cares,
Nothing his truth can dim;
He gives his very best to those
Who leave the choice to him.
No help! nay, it is not so!
Though human help be far, thy God is nigh.
Who feeds the ravens hears his children's cry;
He's near thee wheresoe'er thy footsteps roam,
And he will guide thee, light thee, help thee home.
God sees me though I see him not;
I know I shall not be forgot;
For though I be the smallest dot,
It is his mercy shapes my lot.
--From the Scandinavian, tr. by Frederic Rowland Marvin.
Teach me to answer still,
Whate'er my lot may be,
To all thou sendest me, of good or ill,
"All goeth as God will."
Dance, O my soul! 'tis God doth play;
His will makes music all the day;
That song which rings the world around
This heart of mine shall ever sound.
--James Mudge.
Let one more attest:
I have seen God's hand through a life time,
And all was for best.
--Robert Browning.