Dead in Sin by Delwin Rees Buckner

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 17, 1910

Dead in Sin

By Delwin Rees Buckner

DELWIN REES BUCKNER

My violin fell heavily at my feet, The intoxicating strains of music ceased; Bound for the graveyard, to the city’s east, A freighted hearse moved slowly down the street, Its plumes, its crape, death-colored, everywhere, And while the horses stepped with measured pace, Magnolias, paler than the waxen face, A sickening perfume scattered through the air.

Too careless had my thoughts and actions been; I knelt and prayed, the first real prayer in years— Not for the one whose life account was in God’s hands, whose ears were deafened to the din Of life, but for myself I plead with tears— Myself, alive, but, O, so dead in sin!

Ambato, Ecuador.