"What have I to do any more with idols,"
HAST thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
"Chief among ten thousand" own Him,
Joyful choose the better part.
Idols once they won thee, charmed thee,
Lovely things of time and sense;
Gilded, thus does sin disarm thee,
Honey'd, lest thou turn thee thence.
What has stripped the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not the sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless worth:
Not the crushing of those idols,
With its bitter void and smart,
But the beaming of His beauty,
The unveiling of His heart.
Who extinguishes his taper
Till he hails the rising sun?
Who discards the garb of winter
Till the summer has begun?
'Tis the look that melted Peter,
'Tis the face that Stephen saw,
'Tis the heart that wept with Mary,
Can alone from idols draw-
Draw, and win, and fill completely,
Till the cup o'erflow the brim.
What have we to do with idols,
Who have companied with Him?
O. R.