OUR METROPOLIS by Max Hill

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 7, 1906

OUR METROPOLIS.

By Max Hill

A MIGHTY city, broad its streets and long, Where surges to and fro the mighty throng, A human tide four thousand thousand strong; An army from the earth's remotest bounds Unite to swell the whirl of sights and sounds; There wealth and poverty walk side by side, The man of wealth, no selfish whim denied, The poor with scarce a daily seed supplied; His wants unnoted, rudely pushed aside.

The lame are there, the halt, the weak, the blind, Who strive for life, but fall beneath the grind Of ceaseless toil. Unwept are they, unsung Their life of pain; their tale of wo, tho wrung From hearts that longed to speak, is never told. The world cares not to hear, and deaf and cold She turns their pleading hands away unfilled, And conscience in the giddy maze is stifled.

Black sin is there, dark-visaged, cruel, bold, With pitfalls to deceive, with wiles untold; Men sold to sin, with brains befogged with drink, Sunk lower than the lowest beast would sink; Unknown to virtue, lost to love or pride, Dead to ambition, knowing naught beside The low desire of beast from man to hide.

There graft and greed, with groping, grasping power Like ancient orgies, strong within the tower Of law (which serves their wills alone), lay hold On strong and weak alike, for all are sold; The "ring," the "boss," hold undisputed sway, With them is power, and none their will gainsay.

The stranger walks those crowded streets alone, Where thousands pass him by, and he unknown. Few hands are there to welcome him, to reach To help the one whose halting foreign speech Can not reveal the longing heart's desire For friendship; can not tell the hopes that fire His soul in this new land to will and do, To mount the heights that rise before his view.

There on those streets, away from friends and home, The outcasts of the world, forsaken, roam; Lost in the toils of sin, a mother's son Goes stumbling by, the drunkard's course to run; But O, the shame, the sorrow, when that one That hurries by with haunted, careworn face Is mother's girl, who found the old home place Too slow, perhaps, and leaving all behind Turned to the world a living death to find.

But look again, the saddest scene of all That on the sight in this great throng will fall Is childhood suffering. Pale, thin, and wan, The hungry, pinched, and grimy face, whereon God's pure, sweet sunshine never, never shone, Where godly cleanliness was never known; The stooping form with toil already bowed, The helpless little ones within the crowd, Some tiny faces marked for sin and crime, Some yet revealing beauty through the grime; So vile in body, dwarfed in soul and mind, Who ne'er received a loving word nor kind.

Let fall the curtain on such scenes as these. Are there no views that satisfy and please? Is there no love, no joy, no song, no prayer, No face of calm content, brow free from care? Yes, yes, in spite of sin, and pain, and crime, In spite of grim disease, revolting grime, In spite of these that sicken and destroy, The city harbors love and peace and joy. Their happy homes are found, where pure and sweet The inmates live apart from crowd and street, Shut in is love, and banished pain and care, Where God is known, and oft is named in prayer.

But these are safe, these need no saving arm, Their guarded lives are free from outward harm. But O, the souls that know no home like this, The childish faces never touched with kiss, The aching heart that never knew the bliss Of mother-love, or felt the fond embrace Of mother-arms, or looked into the face Of innocence and purity to trace Responsive smiles of love. And look again, Where in a crowded hovel of a den (Call this not home, tho these be forms of men), In filth and heat, a dozen, aye, a score, Of human souls exist, they live no more. The stranger in the crowd, bowed down with grief, Is still alone, for him is no relief; The man of crime, the outcast, shunning light, Like beasts of prey go forth to slay at night.

These live their lives of sin and shame and wo, A hunted life, where blow demands a blow. These, these, are they who need the outstretched hand, These homeless strangers in a foreign land, These men and women, dead to purity, These children, steeped in criminality, These souls that never breathed God's name in prayer, These need the Saviour's tender love and care.

Shall they go down to death in pauper graves And never know the only power that saves? Shall Christians idly gaze upon the lost Whose ransomed souls the blood of Jesus cost, And reach no hand to save? The Master stands And pleads before their hearts, His piercéd hands Outstretched to call them home. Their eyes see not, Their darkened minds so seared with blight and blot No comprehension know. Arouse, awake! And teach these dying souls their bonds to break! Teach them of Him whose life and all beside He gave for such as they, tho crimson dyed; Show them the cross whereon their Saviour died, Their Saviour who for them was crucified.