SPEAK THOU THE TRUTH by Dean Alford

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 11, 1905

SPEAK THOU THE TRUTH

By Dean Alford

Speak thou the truth. Let others fence And trim their words for pay; In pleasant sunshine of pretense, Let others bask their day.

Face thou the fact—the safer seem In shelter to abide; We were not made to sit and dream— The safe must first be tried.

Where God has set His thorns about, Cry not, “The way is plain;” His path within, for those without, Is paved with toil and pain.

One fragment of His Blessed Word Into thy spirit burned Is better than the whole, half heard, And by thine interest turned.

Show thou the light. If conscience gleam, Set not thy bushel down; The smallest speck may throw its beam O’er hamlet, tower, and town.

Be true to every inmost thought, And as thy thought, thy speech; What thou hast not by suffering bought, Presume not thou to teach.

Hold on, hold on—thou hast the Rock; Thy foes are on the sand; The first world-tempest’s ruthless shock Scatters their shifting strand.

With each wild gust the mist will clear, We now see darkly through; And justified at last appear The true, in him that’s true.

—Dean Alford.