All Is Well by J. A. L. Derby

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 16, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 36.

All Is Well

By J. A. L. Derby

By J. A. L. Derby

And all is well, tho' faith and form Be sundered in the night of fear. Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm. — Tennyson.

Yea, all is well, tho' every hope Seem shattered in the night of fear; Tho' o'er the storm no voice we hear, And darkly in the gale we grope.

And all is well the time and tide Seem hurled by sightless fate along; The God seems only with the strong, To rudely thrust the weak aside.

And where the moldering ashes tell How wrought the fagot without ruth, To quench in man the light of truth, We still may murmur, “All is well.”

Tho' no blest hand extended quell The reckless play of aimless chance, Which levels with its mortal lance Both good and bad, yet all is well.

Shall God be blamed that millions swell The roll of those who fall in night, Who gladly would have owned the light? I scarcely know. Yet all is well.

If I profess that every mote Is guided by direct command; Alike by Heaven's present hand The lambkin strays 'mid thorns remote, The tower of Siloam fell,— Do I not make a god of chance, And raise a shrine to circumstance? And were it thus, would it be well?

But 'tis not so; for tho His word Runs all the realm of nature through, And holds her myriad action true In terms of law wherever heard, Yet every human will may bend Her forces in a thousand ways, The schoolboy with the lightning plays, The sternest elements we rend.

If, then, I brew with careless hand The deadly bane of cyanide, If ignorance or folly guide When reason only should command, Must Heaven then stand sentinel To thwart the course of final law, And teach the race there is no flaw In heedlessness? Would that be well?

And if He gave us reason's aid To learn His ways and find their use, Could He well sanction its abuse, And teach 'twere better disobeyed?

I hold not thus. The more I dwell In thought upon the mighty plan, Its meaning and its use for man, The more I feel that all is well.