University of Virginia Library

It is not our sins that send us there:
There are sinners as bad in the heavenly choir,
And souls as sweet as the summer air
Up to their lips in the lake of fire.
Stained with vices, as black as night,
Some shall be found on the narrow way;
For seen by the Lord from His holy height
All your virtues are black as they.
It is our unbelief slams the door,
And rams in the bolt too, right in our face;
But so much the more are our sins, the more
Glory there is to abounding grace.
What, if one wronged you, meaning it not?
What, if one hurt you just by a word?
No great credit to wipe that blot,
Or to forget what you need not have heard.
But if I hate you, make you a liar,
Slay your dearest, and mock at his name,
Oh, the mercy that rises higher
The higher the sinner's guilt and blame!

Only believe in the Lamb they slew,
And in the blood that from Him did flow;
Only believe that He died for you,
And it shall wash you as white as the snow.
Oh, but the Blood is the life of Faith!
Even one drop would a world redeem.
Blood on the lintels, and ancient Death
Passed by the door like a hideous dream;
Blood on his raiment made the Priest
Holy to stand where the Lord was seen;
Blood on the altar wrath appeased;
Blood on the sinner, and he is clean.
Science and learning are but snares,
Reason and knowledge they are traps;
Better lie down with wolves and bears
Than with critical principles, books, and maps.
Once I starved in the Hebrides,
Nearly a month, on whelks and clams,
And fishy birds from the grey salt seas,
While I tried to think they were beeves and lambs:
So is the soul that feeds on stuff
Reason gives it instead of bread;
So is the man who is swollen with fluff
Science is fain to put into his head.
These cannot take one sin away,
Bring no peace to the troubled heart;
As well down on your knees and pray
To the graven image of heathen art.
Children make-believe anything, whiles
They have got plenty to eat and drink,
Make a grand feast out of slates and tiles,
And water is wine if you only wink.
Oh how nicely they carve a stone!
Oh how pretty they drink the toast!
This is the shortbread, that the scone,
There are the platters of boiled and roast!
But let the thirst and hunger come,
And give them for bread their slates and stones,
And poor little hearts! all their prattle is dumb,
And make-believe ends in tears and moans.

So is the soul that plays with shams,
So till there comes an hour of need;
So shall it starve on whelks and clams
Of rational thought and virtuous deed.
But let him see the guilt and gloom,
But let him smell the burning lake,
And hear, as it were, the billows boom
Where is no shore for them to break.
Only the Blood then that atones,
Only the Blood can give him rest:
Hence with your make-believe slates and stones,
He must have truth, for truth is best.

Hell and the devil (I thought the words
Came from his lips with a kind of smack,
And round and rich, as the singing birds
Dwell on a choice note, and call it back)—
Hell and the devil will have their due;
Oh, you may rush at a ditch or hedge,
And scramble through with a scratch or two,
And a tattered skirt to the other ledge;
But there's no bottom to yonder pit,
There is no other side to hell,
There is no make-believe in it,
And there for ever the faithless dwell.
A terrible picture! aye, and whiles
I have almost thought that it could not be,
As I looked on the bay with its sunny smiles
Glinting over the laughing sea.
There the fishermen trim their boats,
The wives at the door are baiting lines,
Mirth of the children blithely floats
Up from the beach as they touch the spines
Of round sea-urchin under the dulse,
Or hunt the crab in the shady pool,
And the small waves beat like a tranquil pulse,
And the seal comes out of the cavern cool,
Bobbing his head above the sea,
There where the white gulls dive and swim,
And the swift ships pass like clouds that be
Hung on the grey horizon dim.
Then I have thought, till my heart grew faint,
And my head swam with the vision dire:
“O beautiful Earth, is it really meant
Thou shalt be wrapped in the flaming fire?
These happy homes where I oft have sat,
These hands I have held in friendly grip,
Those curly children I love to pat,
Or to press their cheeks with a prayerful lip,
Can they be fated—one of them even—
Yet in the outer dark to lie,
Far away hid from the glory of Heaven,
And gnawed by the worm that cannot die?
Oh, the anguish that thought has sent
Thrilling all through my heart and brain!
And Word and warning and argument
The Spirit has pleaded with me in vain.
I thought it was righteous to rebel,
I thought that it was for God I spoke,
When I wrestled against the pains of hell,
Like Jacob, until the morning broke.
But who am I to reject His word
That tells of the deathless worm and fire?
And where were the mercy of the Lord
If it plucked not brands from the burning pyre?