Poems and Short Features

Babylon Is Fallen

Hail the day so long expected,
Hail the year of full release.
Zion’s walls are now erected,
And her watchmen publish peace.
Through our Shiloh’s wide dominion,
Hear the trumpet loudly roar;

All her merchants stand with wonder,
What is this that comes to pass?
Murm’ring like the distant thunder,
Crying “O, alas, alas.”
Swell the sound ye kings and nobles,
Priest and people rich and poor;

Blow the trumpet in Mount Zion,
Christ has come the second time.
To rule with a rod of iron,
All who now as foes combine.
Babel’s garments we’ve rejected,
And all our fellowship is o’er.

In the Dawning, Hymn 6

“Cease Ye from Man”

"If any man serve Me, let him follow Me." -- John 12:26

IT IS time for the establishment of the true kingdom--it is just at hand. It is time for the gathering of the elect out of every quarter, every district of this figurative Babylon in which the Lord's people are captives to these devices of Satan; it is time for a reassertion of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free; it is time that the Lord's people should recognize him as their only King and Director; it is time for them to hear the words, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" (Isaiah 2:22) It is time for the Lord's people to realize that the Lord is entirely competent to conduct his own work in the way most pleasing to himself, and most advantageous to those who are truly his; it is time for them to look to the Lord to see what agents, what channels of truth, what ministries of service in spiritual Israel he has provided or is providing.

When we come to realize the situation, we find that all this matter of recognizing popes, cardinals, bishops, doctors of divinity, etc., is contrary to the divine arrangement--in direct antagonism to the same; but that, nevertheless, it has not hindered and will not be permitted to hinder, the accomplishment of the Lord's work and the gathering of the true Israelites, the elect, the precious, the Lord's jewels, out of nominal Israel. This work of the Lord is going gradually on, regardless of what the people in general may do. - R3217:3

Songs in the Night, August 1

Writing

Book of life to us is open,
While we live therein we're writing;
Every day a new page opens,
Every day our actions fill it
With things good or things indifferent.

God, too, in his book keeps record,
In his Book of Life he's entered
Names which worthy, may abide there;
But those names which prove unworthy
Shall be blotted from its pages.

"Mene, mene," numbered, numbered,
God is writing, as the days go;
In the balance we are weighed,
Weighed our thots and words and motives
Weighed the effort, weighed the action.

On time's wall a hand is writing
Hand invisible is writing.
Will the words acclaim us faithful,
Or will the word be, “Tekel,”
That is written on the wall?

Martin C. Mitchell, Poems of the Way, page 139