WHAT is the world?—A wildering maze,
Where sin hath tracked ten thousand ways
Her victims to ensnare;
All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.
Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads,
Down to eternal night;
One humble path that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.
Is there a guide to show that path?
The Bible:—he alone who hath
The Bible, need not stray;
Yet he who hath, and will not give
That heavenly guide to all who live,
Himself shall lose the way.
—James Montgomery.