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CONTEMPT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 22, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 50, No. 21.

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CONTEMPT

By N. P. Willis

I have unlearned contempt. It is the sin That is engendered earliest in the soul, And doth beset it like a poison-worm Feeding on all its beauty. As it steals Into the bosom, you may see the light Of the clear, earnest eye grow cold and dim, And the fine, upright glory of the brow Cloud with mistrust, and the unfettered lip, Curled with the iciness of a constant scorn. It eats into the mind till it pollutes All its pure fountains. Feeling, reason, taste, Breathe of its chill corruption. Every sense That could convey a pleasure is benumbed, And the bright human being, that was made Full of all warm affections, and with power To look through all things lovely up to God, Is changed into a cold and doubting fiend, With but one use for reason—to despise!
—N. P. Willis.