THE MISSING GUY by Ida Fairfield

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 14, 1882

THE MISSING GUY.

By Ida Fairfield

How tall and straight the smoke-stack rose, A hundred feet in air, Upreared with anxious thought, by those Who fashioned it with care. More slowly now, almost in place— The tall top bends and sways— With bated breath the strain we trace Along the lengthened stays.

Another inch, and firmly held, The shaft for years will stand, By wind and storm in vain repelled, A landmark in the land. But see, it topples, it will fall, The bottom guy is where? A little strength, a child's, quite small, Might save, expended there.

Alas! the cord was missing there— A moment still and slow, Like a long pendulum hung in air, The shaft swung to and fro, Then, with a heavy crash, it fell, A shattered, ruined mass, And crushed and broken fragments tell Of ruin where it passed.

Have you not seen a shapely life Rise stately, tall, and fair, With intellectual grandeur rife, And fashioned well with care? Almost in place it seems to be, We scarcely mark it swing, Till sudden, in its place we see A wrecked and ruined thing.

In searching for the cause of all, The missing guy we trace; A single cord had saved the fall, If fastened at the base— Anchored to Christ, the cord of love Had held through trial's strain, Temptation sought in vain to move, Or sin the soul to stain.

—Ida Fairfield, in Sabbath Recorder.