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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 10, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 6.

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The Home Circle.

By Prince Georgian

AN HONEST MAN.

A STRANGER to the subtle guile That makes deceit beneath a smile, Assumed to silence and betray, His acts and deeds are but, in sooth, The witness to the simple truth Of all that he may think or say.
He scorns the arts of base pretence, Nor seeks to mystify the sense With nice decisions, dimly seen; But docile to receive the light, He shuns the wrong, pursues the right, And makes no compromise between.
He asks not whether praise or blame Awaits to honor or defame, For what his conscience may propose; But faithful to his chosen course, He presses on with tireless force, Nor heeds the clamors that oppose.
He scans the motives that inspire The hidden springs of strong desire, Their true intent to ascertain; If right to others they deny, Or good or selfish ends apply, He stamps them out with deep disdain.
E'en as the sun, with changeless ray, Illumes the scenes of passing day, So he, thro' his allotted span, Throws on the shifting ways of time The radiance of a worth sublime, That dignifies the name of man! —Prince Georgian.