DRAWING WATER | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1879

DRAWING WATER.

I HAD drank with lips unsated, Where the founts of pleasure burst; I had hewn out broken cisterns, And they mocked my spirit's thirst.

And I said, "Life is a desert, Hot and measureless and dry; And God will not give me water Though I pray, and faint, and die."

Spoke there then a friend and brother, "Rise and roll the stone away! There are founts of life upspringing In thy pathway every day."

Then I said—my heart was sinful— Very sinful was my speech; "All the wells of God's salvation Are too deep for me to reach."

And he answered: "Rise and labor; Doubt and idleness is death. Shape thou out a goodly vessel With the strong hands of thy faith."

So I wrought and shaped the vessel, Then knelt lowly, humbly there; And I drew up living water, With the golden chain of prayer. —Anon.