ABOUNDING LOVE by Thoro Harris

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 15, 1899

ABOUNDING LOVE.

By Thoro Harris

O, TELL me not that love and might Are both enthroned above; There grace and majesty unite, For God is only love!

On every hand, both sea and land, His dazzling brightness prove Whose glory is His goodness, and Whose pleasure is His love.

There's beauty for the charmed eye, The eye to beauty given, And for the ear sweet harmony, The harmony of heaven.

For every sense His grace supplies Beatitude divine; And ever, with His love-lit eyes, He seeks to kindle thine.

Ah, He it is who piles yon clouds, Of wondrous form and hue, In temple, and in pyramid, And gorgeous palace, too,

That through these fairy gateways we As glows the sun of even, May gaze with raptured eye, to see The battlements of heaven!

There lies the city of our dreams Depicted on the skies, And every aspiration seems Not far to realize.

So, in the setting in of night, The night of woe and pain, God watches with thee till the light Of day returns again.

'Tis of His love the robins sing; And from the wind-swept tree Breaks not upon thy listening ear His sighing sympathy?

The ceaseless throbbing of the sea Upon the rock-bound strand,— What is it but those arms of love Enfolding every land?

E'en in His wrath, which through long years Burns hot against thy sin, The flame shall both dry up thy tears And purge away thy tin.

Nor deem that Wisdom could devise What is not for thy good; At each new step some glad surprise Attests His Fatherhood,

Whose bow of boundless grace appears High overarching all, Who stoops from sweeping stars and spheres To mark the sparrow's fall.

And tho each blooming hope be crushed, Love can not be unjust; The seed shall bear an hundred-fold, Now trampled in the dust.

I see not what insidious snare Lurks in approaching doom; But God has placed His rainbow there To gild the cloud of gloom.

The secret of His dark designs As yet I can not tell, Nor read the meaning of those signs I have not learned to spell.

Yet in this faith I calmly trust, That what lies now concealed, When His own breath allays the dust Shall plainly be revealed.

I know not what reserves of wrath Earth's final plagues contain, Nor in their desolating path What deathly horrors reign.

Yet in the mystery of His ways Methinks I can discern Why God in sov'reign love delays The sons of men to spurn.

Unmeasured mercy seeks to dwell In all His plans severe; With justice, pity mingles well, And hope consorts with fear.

His gentleness shall make them great Who in that grace confide. Love's trophies crowd his car of state And 'neath love's banner ride.

And when I join the blissful choir Of ransomed souls above, My hymn shall be, eternally, His all-embracing love. THORO HARRIS. Washington, D. C.