Your ShelfYour Projects

BUILDERS

8%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 15.

Read the full edition

BUILDERS

By A. Allen John

BY A. ALLEN JOHN.
The world is the workshop, and builders we Are building for time or eternity; And the structures we rear, to have them stand, Must be built on the rock, not shifting sand.
Our tools are our voices, our limbs, and brain; And our work must be done on land and main. Let us build in time so, at last, that we May finish our work in eternity.
The great Master Builder supplies so free For his under workmen—to you and me— The stuff for our building, outlasting time, Whose worth is untold, its beauties sublime.
With a foundation broad, well laid, and sure, Let us build to-day with the good and pure, The faithful toilers of every clime, Who build for eternity, not for time.
Of wood, hay, and stubble, silver and gold, Let nothing be seen; for we have been told They will not endure the great burning day, When sin with its follies all pass away.
The earth swings to-day in a boundless mine, Which is full to the brim with God's sunshine, Gushing forth so free, it each day o'erflows As a balm for healing life's bitter woes.
Not the scorching heat, as by simoon borne, But as hurried zephyrs at early morn, The life-giving sunshine, with vernal show'rs, Which carpet the earth with greensward and flow'rs.
The words kindly spoken, the deeds of love To suffering ones, who in sorrows move, With mantle of charity for all Who in darkness falter, in weakness fall,
Like the wave-kissed gem of the crystal sea, Will sparkle through time and eternity; And the world and heaven at last will own Them as chippings from Christ, the corner-stone.
The time for our labors will not be long; The rose-bloom of health, the rapture of song, Will fade as the light with some setting sun, As we pass to rest, our earth work all done.