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THE PREACHER

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 11.

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THE PREACHER.

He took a shaft both strong and straight, A shaft he had polished with labor great.
He winged it with sweet eloquence, With learning and with subtle sense.
Boldly he drew, and he aimed with care; But it wounded only the idle air.
A second he took, both straight and strong, Winged with a passionate sense of wrong.
He drew it stoutly and aimed it true; The mark he aimed at was plain in view.
Swift it fled, yet it lighted wide; For it touched on a rock, and it swerved aside.
He reached his hand, and took from above, A slender arrow, barbed with love.
He aimed it with a little art, Yet it touched and wounded a human heart.
His last, his lightest, was winged with prayer, And he shot it forth through the yielding air.
No careful aim the preacher took, For he turned to Heaven his upward look;
Yet it pierced a heart both hard and proud, The hardest heart in all the crowd.
—Sunday at Home.