Poems and Short Features

The Cost of Discipleship

Would ye be My disciples? Consider again:
Can ye follow My footsteps through trial and pain?
Can ye throw away pleasure, and glory, and fame,
And live but to honor My cause and My name?

Can ye turn from the glitter of fashion and mirth,
And dwell like a pilgrim and stranger on earth,
Despising earth’s riches, and living to bless?
Can you follow the feet of the shelterless?

Can ye ask from your heart the forgiveness of men?
Can ye list to reproaches, nor answer again?
Can ye pray that repentance to life may be theirs
Who’ve watched for your falling, who’ve set for you snares?

When ye hear I am come, then can ye arise,
The joy of your heart springing up in your eyes?
Can ye come out to meet Me, whate’er the cost be,
Though ye come on the waves of a storm-crested sea?

When I call, can ye turn and in gladness "come out"
From the home of your childhood, the friends of your heart?
With naught but My promise on which to rely,
Afar from their love—can ye lie down and die?

Yea, we’ll take up the cross and in faith follow Thee
And bear Thy reproach, Thy disciples to be.
Blest Savior, for courage, to Thee we will fly;
Of grace Thou hast promised abundant supply.

—Poems of Dawn, p. 40

 

Christ, the Ideal Husband

As Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it, so also should men love their wives
as their own body. —Ephesians 5:25-32.

Great love is this—that a man should do for his wife what he would do for himself! So Christ did all this for his body, the church. He did even more than this—he laid down his life for us. This should further suggest that husbands should lay down their lives for their wives, and consequently should provide not only for her food and clothes, but for her mental and moral interests as well. These should all come under the care of the husband; and a good husband should see that his wife is well cared for, even at the sacrifice of some things for himself, as circumstances might suggest.

Then, turning to the other side of the matter, the apostle says that as the church reverences her Lord, so should wives reverence their husbands. Only as mankind has caught the spirit of this divine lesson, only in that proportion do they understand how to get the best out of life. Those who follow strictly the Lord’s arrangements get the most out of the marriage relation.

The husband who loves his wife to the neglect of his own preference at times is the one who is likely to be appreciated most; and the wife who does what she can to serve her husband’s interest and is devoted to him is an illustration of what the church does for her Lord. . . .

Those who marry should have in consideration the fact that they are probably not marrying a person who is perfect; for the Bible tells us that "there is none perfect, no, not one." Neither one is perfect; and for one who is imperfect to ask that another shall be perfect, when neither one is or can be perfect, is manifestly wrong.

—Charles T. Russell, Reprints, p. 5900

 

Others

Lord, help me live from day to day
In such a self-forgetful way
That even when I kneel to pray
My prayer shall be for others.

Help me in all the work I do
To ever be sincere and true,
And know that all I’d do for you
Must needs be done for others.

Let "self" be crucified and slain
And buried deep, and all in vain
May efforts be to rise again,
Unless to live for others.

And when my work on earth is done
And my new work in heaven’s begun
May I forget the crown I’ve won
While thinking still of others.

Others, Lord, yes, others;
Let this my motto be.
Help me to live for others,
That I may live like Thee.

—C. D. Meigs, Poems of the Way, p. 119

 

The Christian Mother

Christian mothers, especially those whose eyes of understanding are opening to a larger appreciation of the divine character and plan, should be swift to avail themselves of their privileges in the training of their children—their responsibilities. Let none think that the work is small and insignificant and without its influence. Every son and every daughter properly trained to reverence and obedience to God and his Word and to their parents, and to the Golden Rule in respect to their dealings with playmates and neighbors, and to order and regularity and punctuality and system and truthfulness, is not only prepared for his and her own blessing in life, but prepared also to be a blessing and example to other boys and girls and men and women. Thus every mother’s influence extends and multiplies as days and years go by.

Even if there were no such desirable influences to be exercised outside the family circle, the proper training of the children means so much to the home—so much to the general peace and comfort and love constituting a home. While the father should not shirk his responsibilities as the head of the family, the mother as his efficient co-worker and helpmate earnestly cooperates, and to her must fall the major part of the responsibility for the training of the children, the breadwinner of the family being necessarily less in contact with them. And when the mother only is a child of grace, the whole responsibility, so far as her husband will permit, falls upon her shoulders, with only the assistance and guidance which the Lord provides. Alas, that so many homes are anarchous, lawless, therefore not really homes at all. Many parents, with false conceptions of kindness and indulgence, allow the children to grow up devoid of the proper respect for God, for parents and for the rights and interests of others. This is the secret of much of the lawlessness and growing spirit of anarchy everywhere manifest in the world. The wonder indeed is that, with homes devoid of law and order and love and kindness, the world is not in a worse state than we find it.

—Charles T. Russell, Reprints, p. 3608

 

Looking for the Sunrise

I’m not looking for the sunset
As the swift years come and go,
I am looking for the sunrise
And the golden morning glow,
Where the light of heaven’s glory
Will break forth upon my sight
In the land that knows no sunset
Nor the darkness of the night.

I’m not going down the pathway
Toward the setting of the sun,
Where the shadows ever deepen,
Where the day at last is done.
I am walking up the hillside
Where the sunshine lights the way
To the glory of the sunrise
Of God’s never ending day.

I’m not going down, but upward,
And the path is never dim,
For the day grows ever brighter
As I journey on with him.
So my eyes are on the hilltops
Waiting for the sun to rise,
Waiting for his invitation
To my home beyond the skies.

—Songs of the Nightingale, p. 8

And Finally

How Did You Die?

Did you tackle the troubles that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Of hide your face from the light of day
With a craven heart and fearful?
O, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there – that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that your licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight, and why?

And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you’ve battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die?