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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 21.

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The Home Circle.

LOSING AND LIVING.

FOREVER the sun is pouring its gold On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow; His warmth he squanders on summits cold; His wealth on the homes of want and sorrow; To withhold his largeness of precious light Is to bury himself in eternal night. To give is to live.
The flower shines not for itself at all; Its joy is the joy it freely diffuses; Of beauty and balm it is prodigal, And it lives in the light it freely loses. No choice for the rose but glory or doom, To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom, To deny is to die.
The seas lend silvery rays to the land, The land its sapphire-streams to the ocean; The heart sends blood to the brain of command, The brain to the heart its lightning motion; And over and ever we yield our breath, Till the mirror is dry and images death. To live is to give.
He is dead whose hand is not open wide To help the need of a human brother; He doubles the length of his life-long ride Who gives his fortunate place to another; And a thousand million lives are his Who carries the world in his sympathies. To deny is to die.
—Selected