The Carpenter’s Son by Annie Johnson Flint

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 7, 1916

The Carpenter’s Son

By Annie Johnson Flint

The little shop at Nazareth, The peaceful life for which it stood, The clear, strong, ringing hammer-strokes, The droning saw, the riven wood, The murmur of the smoothing plane, The scent of shavings freshly curled,— When Thou hadst left them all behind And gone thy way into the world, Where men would hate thee and revile, And one betray thee with a kiss, And one deny, and all forsake, Was there one added pang in this:

That tools of thy familiar craft Should be the things that wounded thee— The hammer and the driven nails, The wood of that accursed tree? Ah, no! Thou Crowned and Crucified, Thou Power of God that seemed to fail; 'Twas not of wood thy cross was made, 'Twas not the hammer and the nail That drove the blows and fixed thee there, And pierced thy hands and feet at last; Man’s hatred and man’s sin the cross, And love—thy love—that held thee fast: —Annie Johnson Flint.