The Home Circle by A Country Pastor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 27, 1881

The Home Circle.

By A Country Pastor

A MODERN MARTYR.

ACROSS the brook, and half way up the hill, A cottage stands, so desolate and still, The peddler views it with a blank dismay, And gathering up his pack moves on his way. There, in a room, not living and not dead, Lies Robert Moyle stretched on a narrow bed, One of God's saints, uncanonized; the grace Of patience shedding luster o'er a face That pain has marked with many a rugged line, And twisted out of shape, but left divine. His sky is lath and plaster, dark nor clear, But gathering deeper shadows every year; His stars are spots that here and there shine down; Whitewash for light, but these are turning brown; One plant set in the window of his room, Makes his scant share of summer's wealth of bloom.

Four cheerless walls, bare, mutilated, grim, Is all the universe appears to him; Gaunt poverty and haggard pain abide Unbidden and relentless at his side. For twenty years have passed since his fond wife Found him amidst the woods and maimed for life; The tree at whose firm base he toiled so well, Swerved in its course and felled him as it fell. But with the bitter grief rose in his mind The faith that God was infinitely kind, And so he conquered doubt, and fought despair, And sunned his heart with hope sustained by prayer; Looked in the face of death, and felt no dread Although a grave lay underneath his bed. The pastor counts his room a sacred place, And him a proof of God's sustaining grace.

Ah, not alone in ancient time was tried Man's faith in God; men still are crucified; And at affliction's dreadful stake to-day The martyrs stand, and slowly waste away, Sharing the smile of God and Heaven's acclaim, With those who died for Jesus in the flame. Some mount to rest as if on wings of light; Some, step by step, grope through a starless night Up craggy steeps, and weep and bleed and pray, Nor know if God be near or far away, But meekly bow to his all-holy will And in the darkness love and trust him still. These be the heroes for whose victories won No cities flame or senates cry, Well done! But in that world where worth is always fame, Divinest honors shall surround each name. —A Country Pastor, in Christian Union.