The Enduring by L. Mitchell Thornton

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California, U.S.A. · Oct 28, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 42.

The Enduring

By L. Mitchell Thornton

L. MITCHELL THORNTON

He boasted and he toasted Modern culture, modern thought, And diligently roasted Faiths by early teachers taught; He vowed the soul’s supremacy No more than mere diplomacy; Through mazes of alchemistry The newer truths he sought.

He jested and divested Every fact by saints conceived; He never slept nor rested Though he had the righteous peeved; For he thought to prove conclusive Facts from brain-storm sparks elusive, And be given fame exclusive For the mad things he believed.

Then sans warning, one dark morning, As it might have been behooved, Came a graybeard, theories scorning By the theorist unmoved; And he cried: “You’re self-deceiving; Seek to prove what you’re believing. Truth, that you would have us leaving,— Truth believes what it has proved.”

And the boaster and the toaster Tried in vain his olden lures; But his name is on the roster That each passing day obscures. For tho’ charm and necromancy, May catch Tom and Dick and Nancy By appealing to some fancy Fundamental faith endures.