Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1899-01-07
JEHOVAH.

OF the red man, who, untamed, doth rove
The wilderness and untaught find Thee
Thou art the soul of homage before which
bends
The heather devotee: his idol is of clay,
But the love he feels, divine and lends
To his benighted soul ray of light celestial.
Till on the craven features seems to glow
An answer to a starving hearts wild cry.
And thro' the stony lips, whisperings low
OF better things seem breathed into the list
ening ear.
Better that poor wretch, PROSTATE on his
face,
Than he who stands above the coffin lid OF
In shambles of despair. For him no happier
place
Than the world our folly makes so desolate
And that wisdom could make beautiful:
For in the floating clouds and on the purple
hills
Thy mantle hangs unmarried by hands I'M
dutiful.
Thou, alone, art there and all is beautiful.
But where the foot of man hath trod.
A scar is on the golden sand,
And married is Thy handiwork, o God,
There is no beauty in your street,
For Famine in the icy blast
Kneels shivering at the feet of Greed
And Folly's child reels blindly past
While dread disease with hooking laugh
Wreaks awful vengeance on them all:
For he who builds the squalid hut
Where misery herds, can rear no wall
So high the offspring of his greed
Will not scale DER and lay his deadly hand
On wife or child. Ifmen were just
Such woe would cease, the magic wand
OF goodness is the key to health.
O God, | know not what Thou art,
| trust where | cannot comprehend;
Thou who knoweth all things, knoweth my
heart
And its wish to know and do the right
That creedbound struggles in mist
OF superstition black as shade of Hades
Made by knaves to brighten fools. list
To the deep murmurings of the restless sea,
To the gentle whisper of the summer wind,
To the thunder S awful roar, and hear
Thy voice, 0 God The workings of Thy mind
Proclaim themselves from yonder sky
In characters of fire. The feeble infant
Whose tiny hand has never turned a leaf
OF the ANIMAL that so wrongs Thee with its rant,
Can read Thee in the evening star,
And, with the love Thou gavest reaches out
To clasp Thee in it's tender arms.
More wise that babe than hoary heads who
hout
Thee, and pretend to compass Thee,
When cen the smallest point of boundless
space
Is all too big for human grasp, yet they
Would bound the Universe and fix place
Where such God as they can comprehend
Sits on a throne, like that vain thing
Our ignorance makes SO necessary
And that human goodness could despoil-a
king,
And issues forth his mandates, mindless quite
OF the million lives, fates, needs, desires,
No two alike, ONE rule for all.
o Mockery. that He who casts His seeds
Into the fallow earth, should blast them
And destroy the harvest of His sowing.
Thou art everywhere, men cannot change
Thee,
Tho they give Thee such a meager showing:
Tho in Thy name they build the dungeon
wall,
The rack, the thumbscrew, and the guillotine
Tho the mad waters of the sea flow red
With human gore, till with its hideous sheen
The blood-stained sky shall herald back
= Its awful menace to ~ slaughtered world
Still wilt Thou be the same, Yesterday,
Today and forever Mans law
Alone, can change; Gods law, or Natures
sway,
Is ever constant, and so long Time shall
reign
Each star shall tread it's wonted round.
Each bird still sing its matin song,
And Winter on the frozen ground,
Shall lay his ermine mantle white
Till infant Spring with rosy hand
Shall snatch it from the sumbering world
And Summer with her shining wand,
OF ripening grain, shall linger there
Till Autumn comes to take her place
And threads with gold her misty hair.
My hope lives in each leaf that blows
That immortality is given all.
Yon naked tree shall bloom again
And ripe fruit from its branches fall.
God give me grace to grateful be
That thou hast left Thy holy word
Emblazoned where the blind may see.
Sarah Ward Temple.
DONA TICJC