AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?
By J. E. Crawford
Oh! how little we truly know
Of friends and neighbors; they come and go;
Daily and hourly we meet and part,
But there is a veil on every heart;
We cannot see, and we do not know
The joys or sorrows which lie below. Many a struggle these hearts have known,
Struggles witnessed by God alone;
Many a sorrow has lived and died,
Carefully screened from the world outside,
Screened from every brother's eyes,
Lest while he pitied he might despise,—
Sorrows which died in a blessed calm,
When the healer poured in oil and balm. Thus do we hide both joy and grief;
Hiding too often the sweet belief,
Which maketh our lot less hard to bear,
And keepeth our souls from dark despair,
Fearing to speak of our own sweet trust,
Lest our brother's be dim with dust. There is a man with whitened hair,
Whom oft we see in the house of prayer;
It needeth no seer to tell that he
Is wearing a sorrow silently,
With one brave boy on the field of strife,
And another wasting his bright young life, Turning aside from the way of truth;—
But which of us speaks to the erring youth,
Patiently striving day by day,
To win back one who has gone astray?
Which of us breathes in the old man's ear
A word of sympathy, hope, and cheer? Oh! there are souls in our midst to-day,
For whom we have failed to watch and pray,
Souls whom we well may dread to meet
When we stand before God's Judgment seat;
Souls who might say, You saw us go
In the downward path to death and woe—
Saw us wasting God's holy day,
As gravely you walked on your churchward way;
But none of you said, as a Christian should,
“Come with us, brother, we'll do you good.”
Ah! 'tis a fearfully solemn thought,
(When will we ponder it as we ought?) That not to ourselves we live or die;
That every day, as it glideth by,
Leaveth our impress for good or ill
On hearts which we either cheer or chill;
Could we but know what depths are stirred
By a careless look or a thoughtless word,
How would we watch these little things,
Which enter the heart like venom'd stings!
How would we pray for grace and light,
To think, to feel, and to act aright!
—J. E. Crawford.