"My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three, The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,-- What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic plan Of Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man, And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of all Redeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall, As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love, By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove!
"My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child, As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,-- O Father, in this evil day when atheism is found Dropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground, Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forget The Friend that hitherto hath helped me--and shall help me yet? Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,-- Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot?
"Ho! Christian soldier,--to the front! and boldly speak aloud The dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,-- That every inch and every instant we are guided well By Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell; That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime, And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time, Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the cause For every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws!
"A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of love Shall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above, Where He (who being God of old became our brother here) Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere, Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the Son Shall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won; And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed race Shall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!"
For a third, my testimony as to the wonders that surround us: I have called this poem The Infinities.
"Lift up your eyes to yon star-jewelled sky, Gaze on that firmament caverned on high,-- Marvellous universe, infinite space, Studded with suns in fixt order and place, Each with its system of planets unseen, Meshed in their orbits by comets between, Worlds that are vaster than mind may believe, Whirling more swiftly than thought can conceive, O ye immensities! Who shall declare The glory of God in His galaxies there?