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HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 51.

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HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

By S. M. S. Haynes

[Dedicated to the American Sabbath Protective Societies.]
AGAIN the fires of Smithfield burn; Once more the gallows-trees uprise; Behold! whichever way we turn, The torture engines meet our eyes, And men, in "human form divine," Blaspheme God's love to thee and thine.
To thee and thine, unless that ye Walk with them in their narrow ways, What matters it how faithfully They serve Thee, Lord, Ancient of Days? It matters not, unless ye shall As low before their idols fall.
With glosses have they, Lord, obscured Thy Holy Word, with bigot pride Denounced Thy servants who endured The weary cross of Him who died; And guilty traitors onward draw Who think to change the "times and law."
From east and west, from north and south, The cry floats on each burdened wind, God's Word, the Spirit of His mouth, Is backward turned by bigots blind; The New World echoes the refrain; The Old World answers back again.
Blush, Tennessee, with crimson shame, And Georgia's lone Savannah plains; O Pennsylvania, what a name Thy land of liberty now stains, Thy mountain peaks and valleys fair! Spirit of Penn, dwellest thou there?
From frozen Canada's wide land, Fast growing hot with bigot hate, To Florida's low flowery strand, The Christlike love doth now abate; And history but repeats her story: We kill with "laws" as swords as gory.
The "sacred soil of Maryland" (What mockery in the prating words!) Forgets the sway of Calvert's hand, And draws, with demon's strength, Hate's cords. Mother of harlots! See, indeed, Thy daughters faithful to thy creed.
Lift, Bunker Hill, thy granite shaft, And pierce the audient heavens through; He from their "circle" wide hath laughed, Ye build the false upon the true, Lift, solemn-visaged Liberty, Higher, thy torch o'er land and sea.
Thy mother's face and vestal stole, And that grand poise of majesty, Foretelling to each trusting soul Divinest love and purity, And peace and safety evermore, To nations crowding on the shore,
What signal they? Dear Christ of God, In olden days the virgin bronze, With heavenly face and arms abroad, Her victims clasped (the legend runs), And for "God's glory" pierced the lives Of all, with her slow, hundred knives.
Home of the brave! Land of the free! What spirit spell is on thee now? The three unclean! Dear Christ, that we To any one but Thee should bow! O hasten, Lord, and save us from The "last delusion's" awful doom!
Thou who didst toil in Galilee, And wept o'er doomed Jerusalem, And on the cross of Calvary Bore meekly Hate's sharp diadem, What harvest of Thy tears and toil Shall there be reaped from such a soil?
Once more the wilderness shall be The refuge of the desolate; Since love has fled, and land and sea Are consecrated now to hate; Yet wake, O "remnant church," and see The morning light that breaks for thee!
See! brighter than the thunder-flame That burned on Sinai's awful brow, And swift as God's strong angel came To stand within the furnace glow, Compelling heat and torturing pain To loose their chemic force again,
So hastes the hour, with horror fraught To those of mystic Babylon; But sweet as sunlight mildly caught On slopes of sacred Lebanon, To those who "wait,"—life unto these; To those, doom's awful auguries.
Now, by Thy Word that can not fail, Each "jot and tittle" still enduring, Thou who hast made us to prevail By grace, through faith, of love's securing, We pray Thee, come, and make us, Lord, Still "more than conquerors" by that Word.
Come near in love, in pity come, O God of love; be pitiful, And teach us that salvation's sum, Our utmost need, Most Merciful, Is from ourselves to save us first, Of all our enemies the worst!
O Thou who on the cross didst die, To reconcile Thy world to Thee, What hear we in Thy bitter cry, Love's sweetest, saddest legacy? "My little children, love each other, For every man to man is brother."
O cross of pain and anguish dire, Gethsemane and Calvary, Be thou our cross to lift us higher, From hate and wrath and bigotry; And in Love's freedom bind us all, And be Thy Word our only thrall!
Trenton, N. Y. S. M. S. HAYNES.