The art she knew was how to ease
The sick man's pain, the weak man's wrong;
And every night as she came home
She said, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_
_The truths men praised she deemed untrue,
The light they hailed to her was dim,
But that the Christ was kind she knew,
She knew that she must be like Him.
Like Mary, in her darkened home,
She sighed, "O Christ, that thou would'st come!"_
_Her hair grew white, her house was bare,
Yet still her step was firm and glad,
The feet of Hunger climbed the stair,
For she had given all she had.
She died within her empty home
Still seeking One who did not come._
_She rose from out the wave of death,
A Stranger stood beside the shore;
The robe she wrought with failing breath,
And staining tears, the Stranger wore.
He drew her tired heart with His smile,
"Lo, I was with thee all the while."_
XIII
THE EMPIRE OF LOVE
But if this spirit of compassion were general, would virtue itself be
secure? Would not a fatal lenience towards vice become the temper of
society? Would not the immediate effect be the declaration of a
general amnesty towards every kind of wrong-doer, and from such an act
what could be expected but a rapid dissolution of the laws and
conventions that maintain the structure of society?
These are natural fears, and they are not altogether the fears of weak
and timid men.
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