p. 174 | QUIET FROM GOD

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 31, 1877

QUIET FROM GOD.

Quiet from God! It cometh not to still The vast and high aspirings of the soul, The deep emotions which the spirit fill, And speed its purpose onward to the goal; It dims not youth's bright eye, Bends not joy's lofty brow, No guiltless ecstacy Need in its presence bow.

It comes not in a sullen form to place Life's greatest good in an inglorious rest; Through a dull, beaten track its way to trace, And to lethargic slumber lull the breast; Action may be its sphere, Mountain paths, boundless fields, O'er billows its career, This is the power it yields:—

To sojourn in the world, and yet apart; To dwell with God, yet still with man to feel; To bear about forever in the heart The gladness which His Spirit doth reveal; Not to deem evil gone From every earthly scene; To see the storm come on, But feel His shield between.

It giveth not a strength to human kind To leave all suffering powerless at its feet, But keeps within the temple of the mind A golden altar and a mercy-seat; A spiritual ark, Bearing the peace of God Above the waters dark, And o'er the desert's sod.

How beautiful within our souls to keep This treasure the All-Merciful hath given! To feel, when we awake, and when we sleep, Its incense round us, like a breeze from Heaven! Quiet at hearth and home, Where the heart's joys begin! Quiet where'er we roam, Quiet around, within! —Sel