The King’s Workmen by Llewellyn A. Morrison

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 1, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 38.

The King’s Workmen

By Llewellyn A. Morrison

“These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work.” 1 Chron. 4:23.

The earth is packed with beauty on the valleys and the hills, And over all the green-sward where the dainty dew distils; The blossoms and the foliage are exquisite and fair; The fern leaves and the wild flowers are choice and very rare; Yet lovelier than the freshness of the brightly blooming sod Is the vibrant life above it from the glowing hand of God.

The graceful sweep of swallow or of martin on the wing, The mocking-bird whose song-burst makes the hills and valleys ring, The piping quail and partridge and the silver-breasted dove, The scarlet-crowned wood-hammer in his rappings for his love,— All these and myriad others in their colors manifold Increase mute Nature’s splendor by their blended tints of gold.

Yet brighter than the bird-life, in all its wealth of pose, Than Sharon’s famous valley or its lily or its rose, Are the frail and quaint creatures, floating by us without sound, That in ev’ry place and portion of the circling earth are found; But these in mystic coloring are dim and incomplete To the marvels of the bug-life which we tread beneath our feet.

The flowers are but the fragrant homes where countless tribes abide In harmony and unity, for pleasure, side by side; The goldenrod and aster, with their teeming insect throngs, Did we truly understand them, would be pearl-nymphs in our songs. The great All-Father made them, and they praise Him all the time. We do well to catch the rhythm of their music in our rime.

Where’er God finds a son of man in sentient touch with all The variant life and radiant bloom which from His mercies fall, He marks him for His service, and selects him for His own, To dwell within the shadow of the everlasting throne, His frugal fare appointed, and his recompense—to bring The perfect work apportioned—for the glory of the King.

One spreads on canvas pictures of the skyway and its moods; Another paints the grandeur of the virgin solitudes; The poet tells the pureness of creation in his song; The singer sounds the cadences o’er all the land along; While he who does the king’s work, in every mood doth laud The infinite adjustments in the finished work of God.