My Library

LOVE AND ITS HIDDEN HISTORY The right to feed and clothe the poor, The right to teach them to endure; The right, when other friends have flown, And left the sufferer all alone, To kneel that dying couch beside, And meekly point them o’er the tide; The right a happy home to make, In any clime for Love’s sweet sake; Rights such as these are all we ask, Until in bliss our souls shall bask.
Many years ago a lady, Mrs.
Washburn,
of Worcester,
Mass., now happily in heaven, was speaking with me on the subject of these writings, and she handed me the following lines defining love.
They are very good :
“ Love is not love that ever wanes; Pure love, true love, the soul retains, That fulness it may gain. (<
Love sees the blessing pouring down, In storms and tempests, though they frown, And bravely bears the pain.
“ True love shrinks not from foes severe; It feels no hatred, knows no fear; But rests in conscious might. “
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Its power to conquer none can know; While other weapons they would show, It dares to do the right. It smiles serene when hatred cowers; Grows strong in persecution’s hours, And boldly owns its own. Defiant of all else beside, It stands, for God is on its side; In God it can be known.
“ God lives in him whom this love keeps, Moves in his soul’s great deep of deeps; His being is divine. “ All filled with an Almighty power, He cries in his great trial hour, ‘ Forgive all foes of mine ! ’ ”