PROGRESS by Eliza H. Morton

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 18.

PROGRESS.

By Eliza H. Morton

BY ELIZA H. MORTON.

Men talk of progress and of power. They say “Humanity can lift itself to heights Of goodness and of love. The beauty fair Of righteousness is that which all may seek And worship and pursue without a thought Of God. Great principles of right exist, Which all the world have seen, and yet will see More clearly as the years go by.”

Ah! whence Their source? Trace back and tell, far back and think, Ye who believe in self-existing power. Man cannot rise above his own ideas Of purity and love. His standard, then, Must give his thought the mould and give his life Its power. If human wisdom, human love, And levels of humanity alone Are that on which he sets his longing eye, Then he can never rise above himself. All men are equal, and opinions that Arise from merely human source can have But little influence o’er the soul.

Our God in love has given us a rule, A standard high above the things of earth,— A perfect life, the truth revealed in flesh, E’en in the heart of him who grasps by faith The wondrous plan of love, whereby a world May be redeemed. Unselfish acts are those Which lead to moral growth. No man so low That gospel faith can give no hope, no joy, No impulse to arise. No man so high That Christ is not before him still to point To nobler deeds, to give new strength.

He who Looks at the earth alone can never see The stars. He who aspires to wear the robe Of righteousness, wrought in the loom of love, Must throw aside his own vile garments, stained With sin, and humbly kneel before the cross, And pray to be received and clothed, and then By faith he must retain that which is given, And, looking not at self, go on and on Until he stands at length before the gate Of that fair city, long foretold, where Christ Himself, with outstretched arms, stands to receive.