The Home Circle | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 2, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 46.

The Home Circle.

TRUST.

SEARCHING for strawberries ready to eat, Finding them crimson, and large, and sweet, What do you think I found at my feet, Deep in the green hill-side? Four brown sparrows, the cunning things, Feathered on back, and breast, and wings, Proud with the dignity plumage brings, Opening their four mouths wide.

Stooping lower to scan my prize, Watching the motions with curious eyes, Dropping my berries in glad surprise, A plaintive sound I heard. And looking up at the mournful call, I spied on a branch near the old stone wall, Trembling and twittering, ready to fall, The poor little mother-bird.

With grief and terror her heart was wrung, And while to the slender bough she clung, She felt that the lives of her birdlings hung On a still more slender thread.

"Ah, birdie!" I said, "if you only knew My heart was tender, and warm, and true!" But the thought that I loved her birdlings too Never entered her small brown head.

And so through this world of ours we go, Bearing our burdens of needless woe; Many a heart beating heavy and slow Under its load of care. But oh! if we only, only knew That God was tender, warm, and true, And that he loved us through and through, Our hearts would be lighter than air.

—Selected.