And I have followed to the cross,
On which a dying Saviour hung,
Bemoaned my sins with weeping eyes,
Besought his grace with suppliant
tongue.
He witness’d all my sorrowing tears,
And heard my suppliant prayer
in Heaven;
Then sweetly spake with cheering voice,
“Daughter, thy sins
are all forgiven.”
Prostrate in dust before His throne,
My heart’s pure worship
then I gave;
Sweetly my ransomed spirit sang,
Jesus Christ has power to
save.”
Then spake the son:—“Talk
not to me,
I heeded not weak woman’s
tears;
But when I sail’d upon the sea,
I quickly silenc’d all
their fears.
Free was my trade, my arm was free,
And human blood I freely spilt;
And many an aged breast like thine,
Has sheath’d my dagger
to its hilt.
Our blood-red pennon floated free,
Our blood-stained deck its
witness gave;
Blood, human blood, was on our hands,
And mingled oft with ocean’s
wave.”
Shudd’ring, the mother cried:
“My son,
Though you are steeped in
human gore,
There is a fountain filled with blood,
That can your purity restore.
Your Angel wife bath’d in that flood,
And proved a Saviour’s
promise true,
And when she gently pass’d from
earth
She left her dying love for
you;
And bade you seek a Saviour’s face,
And by His mercy be forgiven,
And by that new and living way,
Seek an inheritance in Heaven.”
“Then she is dead,” he mournful
cried,
“’Tis better thus,
for see the sun
With rosy light now streaks the east:
And ere it sets my race is
run.
Firm would I stand upon the drop,
Meet firmly my approaching
doom;
But death is not an endless sleep,
And justice lives beyond the
tomb.
Yet this conviction comes too late;
My soul is lost,—I
cannot pray;
Forget your son—forget my fate,
And walk in wisdom’s
pleasant way.”
In agony the mother pressed
To her sad heart her guilty
son;
But yet, like incense from that heart,
Sweetly arose, “thy
will be done.”
No hands were folded on his breast.
They laid him not within the
tomb;
The surgeon took him from the drop,
To meet a more disgraceful
doom.
And such is life, whose ebb and flow
Heaves the deep sea of human
mind;
True happiness they only know,
Whose every wish’s to
Heaven resigned.
The History of a Household.