GOOD AND EVIL by A. J. H. Duganne

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 18, 1877

GOOD AND EVIL.

By A. J. H. Duganne

Not lightly did the Persian sage Conceive two warring spirits— The Good and Ill that every age Of mortal life inherits. Each human soul discerns in these His curse and his evangel— Ahrimanes—Ormuzdes— The Demon and the Angel.

Not only is our life two-fold In waking and in sleeping, But two-fold is the mind we hold Within the body's keeping. Not only two-fold is our sense Of doing and of dreaming, But Good and Ill, with power intense, Divide our nature's seeming.

We love, yet hurt the hearts we love; We feel, yet mock at feeling; We ask our Father's help above, Yet spurn our brother's kneeling. We chase the brightest form, to find 'Tis but a cloud we follow; We pluck the fruit of fairest rind, To prove it sere and hollow.

Possession palls, and promise cheats, Hope fails, and trust is shattered: Our marriage blooms, our cradle sweets, In lowly graves lie scattered. What matters, then, to trust or hope? What use in human caring? Since Evil still with Good may cope, And love must die despairing?

Not so, my soul! Love never dies, And Good can never perish; The fruit will bloom beyond the skies Whose blossoms here we cherish. The evil rules but earthly things, Left at the grave's low portal: The good awaits with angel wings, To rule our life immortal.

—A. J. H. Duganne.