Hello, Boys! Part 9

Unless you are ill.u.s.trating your desire for peace by a peaceful, love-ruled home, You have no right to clamour for a cessation of hostilities among nations; Nations are only chains of individuals.

When each individual expresses nothing but love and peace in his daily life, there will be no more war.

You who are loudly crying out for peace, You who are wanting love to vanquish hate, How is it in the four walls of your home The while you wait?

'LET US GIVE THANKS'

For the courage which comes when we call, While troubles like hailstones fall; For the help that is somehow nigh, In the deepest night when we cry; For the path that is certainly shown When we pray in the dark alone, Let us give thanks.

For the knowledge we gain if we wait And bear all the buffets of fate; For the vision that beautifies sight If we look under wrong for the right; For the gleam of the ultimate goal That shines on each reverent soul: Let us give thanks.

For the consciousness stirring in creeds That love is the thing the world needs; For the cry of the travailing earth That is giving a new faith birth; For the G.o.d we are learning to find In the heart and the soul and the mind: Let us give thanks.

For the growth of the spirit through pain, Like a plant in the soil and the rain; For the dropping of needless things Which the sword of a sorrow brings; For the meaning and purpose of life Which dawns on us out of the strife: Let us give thanks.

For the solace that comes to our grief In knowing earth's season is brief; For the cert.i.tude given by faith Of the continents out beyond death; For the glorious thought that each day Is speeding us the reward away: Let us give thanks.

THE BLACK SHEEP

'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?'

Yes, sir--yes, sir: three bags full.'

'I don't want any New Thought,' said he, 'Or any Theosophy, for, you see, The faith I learned at my mother's knee Is good enough for me.

Of course, I'm a wee bit broader than she, Hearing one sermon where she heard three, And I read my paper on Sunday, instead Of the Bible only. My mother said I was a black sheep, when she saw I strayed a trifle away from the law, And didn't think every one left in the lurch Who happened to go to a different church; But, still, in the main, her creed is mine, And I don't want anything more divine.'

Yet his mother's mother was more austere; She taught her children a creed of fear, And she called them 'black sheep' when, with a shock, She saw them straying away from the flock, Just far enough To get around places they thought too rough, Like infant d.a.m.nation and endless h.e.l.l.

But his mother's mother's mother would tell How her mother thought it was G.o.d's sweet will To punish and torture a heretic till They drove out the devil that made him dare Think for himself in the matter of prayer And faith and salvation. So we see how it is If we look back over the centuries - The creeds men learned at their mother's knee When Salem witches were hanged to a tree, And the pious dames flocked thither to see, Are not deemed Christian or holy to-day; And the bold black sheep who went straying away From rut-worn paths in their search for G.o.d, And leaped over the fence into pastures broad, Are the great trail-makers for mortal souls, Leading the race up to higher goals And a larger religion; where man must find G.o.d dwelling ever within his mind, Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought, And h.e.l.l but the places where love is not.

A mighty religion that makes this earth But the cradle that fits us for death's new birth And the life beyond it, that is so near Its echoes may reach to the listening ear.

'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?'

'Yes, sir--yes, sir: a whole world full.'

ONE BY ONE

Little by little and one by one, Out of the ether, were worlds created; Star and planet and sea and sun, All in the nebulous Nothing waited Till the Nameless One Who has many a name Called them to being and forth they came.

All things mighty and all things small, Stone and flower and sentient being, Each is an answer to that one call, A part of Himself that His will is freeing - Freeing to go on the long, long way That winds back home at the end of the day.

Little by little does mortal man Build his castles for joy and glory, And one by one time shatters each plan And lowers his palaces, story by story- Story by story, till earth is just A row of graves in the lowly dust.

One by one, whatever was called, Must be called back to the primal Centre.

Let no soul tremble or be appalled, For the heart of the Maker is where we enter - Is where we enter to gain new force Before we are sent on another course.

And one by one, as He calls us back, We shall find the souls that we loved with pa.s.sion, In the great way-stations along the track, And clasp them again in the old, sweet fashion - In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod - And journey along with them up to G.o.d.

PRAYER

Lord, let us pray.

Give us the open mind, O G.o.d, The mind that dares believe In paths of thought as yet untrod; The mind that can conceive Large visions of a wider way Than circ.u.mscribes our world to-day.

May tolerance temper our own faith, However great our zeal; When others speak of life and death, Let us not plunge a steel Into the heart of one who talks In terms we deem unorthodox.

Help us to send our thoughts through s.p.a.ce, Where worlds in trillions roll, Each fashioned for its time and place, Each portion of the whole; Till our weak minds may feel a sense Of Thy Supreme Omnipotence.

Let us not shame Thee with a creed That builds a costly church, But blinds us to a brother's need Because he dares to search For truth in his own soul and heart And finds his church in home and mart.

Give us the faith that makes us kind, Give us the open sight and mind - O G.o.d, the often mind That lifts itself to meet the Ray Of the New Dawning Day: Lord, let us pray.

BE NOT DISMAYED

Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.

Poor human nature for a little s.p.a.ce Must suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath Leaves such long silence; but let not thy faith Fail for a moment in G.o.d's boundless grace.

But know, oh know, He has prepared a place Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath, Yet not beneath; for those entrancing spheres Surround our earth as seas a barren isle.

Ours is the region of eternal fears; Theirs is the region where G.o.d's radiant smile Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope Even to those who in the shadows grope.

They are not far from us. At first though long And lone may seem the paths that intervene, If ever on the staff of prayer we lean The silence will grow eloquent with song And our weak faith with cert.i.tude wax strong.

Intense, yet tranquil; fervent, yet serene, He must be who would contact World Unseen And comrade with their Amaranthine throng; Not through the tossing waves of surging grief Come spirit-ships to port. When storms subside, Then with their precious cargoes of relief Into the harbour of the heart they glide.

For him who will believe and trust and wait Death's austere silence grows articulate.

ASCENSION

I have been down in the darkest water - Deep, deep down where no light could pierce; Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter, The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.

I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison, And begged for the beautiful boon of death; But out of the billows my soul has risen To glorify G.o.d with my latest breath.