TO PREACHERS AND TEACHERS.
By Alphonso Alva Hopkins
[By Prof. Alphonso Alva Hopkins in New Voice.] “A COMPROMISE of Right is a triumph of the Wrong?”
Let it loudly ring from sermon, let it proudly sing in song,
All across our Christian land!
Tell it bravely, all ye preachers,
Spell it gravely, all ye teachers,
Till the statesmen and the people understand! Among us Error stalks, with a brazen, bloated face,
And it walks o’er Truth and Manhood, while it mocks at their disgrace;
And it sneers at all their shame!
Teach it gravely, O ye teachers,
Preach it bravely, O ye preachers,
That the compromise of Christians is to blame! The hand of Duty shrinks from the task that God has set;
And a sleepy Conscience winks and blinks at Evil that is met
In the Church and in the State;
Then proclaim it, godly preachers,
Name and shame it, moral teachers,
Ere your courage and your conscience rouse too late! Men hunger where the fields have been lavish of their yields—
Where the greed of men o’er need of men a tyrant scepter wields
While the children cry for bread;
Spell it slowly, moral teachers,
Tell it holy, saintly preachers,
Till the hungry and the innocent are fed! The images of God in the slime of sin are trod,
By the feet of human vultures that with selfishness are shod;
And the law defends the deed!
Make it plain, O public teachers,
That in vain are pious preachers
If the practise do not parallel the creed! Where Christian men uphold wrong or sin for guilty gold,
They shall see the wrath of God at last His flaming path unfold,
While they cower at His feet!
Take His Word, O puny preachers!
Make it heard, as living teachers
Of a Gospel that is Godlike and complete! Indulgence can not buy, under License low or high,
Any right for man to blight for man his Manhood till he die,
While the devil holds the purse!
Loudly teach it, righteous teachers,
Proudly preach it, ye His preachers,
Or the God of wrath shall smite you with His curse!