p. 1 | HIS SYMPATHY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 25, 1878

HIS SYMPATHY.

O HUMAN, sympathizing Lord! We own with grateful awe The matchless self-forgetting love Which was thy constant law; The love which in thy loneliness Knew neither self nor pain, But gladdened in thy children's joy, And saddened in their pain.

No tender light of earthly home Rejoiced thy weary eyes; Once past thy saintly mother's arms, Beneath the midnight skies, Thou King of Heaven, in all the earth Couldst boast nor couch, nor bread, Or but by wayside fountain wash The hands that myriads fed.

And yet, to Cana's wedding feast, When the assembly came, A blessed benediction fell At mention of thy name, Joy to the festival, where served The Master, though its guest, And smiling on the hearts that loved, Made them so doubly blest!

And happy o'er the grassy slopes Of lovely Galilee, In later days the mother brought Her child for Christ to see. I well can think how tenderly Close to thy lonely breast With God's own gentleness upheld The little one was pressed.

Saying, “Of such my kingdom is, (Save as this little child, None can a welcome find therein,) Confiding, pure, and mild,” And backward through the springing grass As home the mother walked, Sweeter for aye were life and love That thus the Master talked.

O human, sympathizing Lord! In all time, now as then, Thou bid'st no sweet affection die, Nor fetterest thy free men, Thou biddest not from daily joy Thy children hide their eyes, Or bend to bead and crucifix Their vision from the skies.

But thou still walkest, where we walk, In homeliest household care, Where love and pity summon us To duty sad or fair. We cannot labor but with thee, Oh make our homes thine own, And find in every heart, dear Lord, Ever a waiting throne! —Christian Weekly.