I found a bit of a poem in a magazine some time ago that caught fire as I read it.  It was written, I judge, in a personal sense; but it came to me at once with a wider meaning; and it persists in so coming at every reading of it.

In this poem there is some one knocking at a door for admission, and a voice without calls,

    “‘Friend, open to Me.’  Who is this that calls? 
    Nay, I am deaf as are my walls;
    Cease crying, for I will not hear
    Thy cry of hope or fear. 
    What art thou indeed
    That I should heed
    Thy lamentable need? 
    Hungry, should feed,
    Or stranger, lodge thee here?

But the voice persists—­

    “’Friend, My feet bleed. 
    Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.’ 
    ’I will not open; trouble me no more. 
    Go on thy way footsore,
    I will not arise and open unto thee.

And still the pleading,

    “’Then is it nothing to thee?  Open, see
    Who stands to plead with thee. 
    Open, lest I should pass thee by, and thou
    One day entreat My face
    And cry for grace,
    And I be deaf as thou art now;
    Open to Me’

    “Then I cried out upon him:  Cease,
    Leave me in peace;
    Fear not that I should crave
    Aught thou may’st have. 
    Leave me in peace, yea, trouble me no more,
    Lest I arise and chase thee from my door. 
    What! shall I not be let
    Alone, that thou dost vex me yet?

    “But all night long that voice spake urgently—­
    ‘Open to Me.’ 
    Still harping in mine ears—­
    ‘Rise, let Me in.’ 
    Pleading with tears—­
    ‘Open to Me, that I may come to thee.’ 
    While the dew dropp’d, while the dark hours were cold—­
    ’My feet bleed, see My Face,
    See My hands bleed that bring thee grace,
    My heart doth bleed for thee—­
    Open to Me.’

“So, till the break of day; Then died away That voice, in silence as of sorrow; Then footsteps echoing like a sigh Pass’d me by; Lingering footsteps, slow to pass.  On the morrow I saw upon the grass Each footprint mark’d in blood, and on my door The mark of blood forevermore."[10]

That same voice still comes with a strangely gentle persistence—­

    “Inasmuch as ye did it
    Unto one of these my brethren, even these least,
    Ye did it unto Me.

    “Inasmuch as ye did it not
    Unto one of these least,
    Ye did it not unto Me."[11]

The Pressing Emergency

  The October Panic. 
  Danger and Victory Eying Each Other. 
  Spirit Contests. 
  A Crisis of Neglect and Success. 
  A Westernized Heathenism.[A]
  A Powerless Christianity. 
  Death or Deep Water. 
  Saved by Saving.

The Pressing Emergency