The Home Circle | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 16, 1882

The Home Circle.

FOR GOOD OR ILL.

Only a word! Yet it bore on its holy breath A message that God had given To kindly warn from the ways of death— And a soul was led to Heaven.

Only a word! Spoken in scorn by lips that smiled, But a haunting doubt's black shade Was cast in the trusting heart of a child, And a life-long darkness made.

Only a word! Yet there lay in its heart, enshrined Like the germ in a tiny seed, A thought, that fell in an earnest mind, And grew to a noble deed.

Only a word! No more widely the ocean parts Land from land with its ebb and flow, Than one false word severed kindly hearts That loved, in the long ago.

Only a word! The lowly whispered "amen" of a prayer; But it flew, like a swift-winged dove, From the stormy depths of a soul's despair, To the Father's heart of love.

Only a word! O, choose it wisely, weigh it well; Send it forth with love and faith; If may be the message one word can tell Will rescue a soul from death. —Advance.