Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee? Richard C. Trench T HROUGH the night of doubt and sorrow Onward goes the pilgrim band, Singing songs of expectation, Marching to the promised land. Clear before us through the dark ness Gleams and burns the guiding light, Brother clasps the hand of brother, Stepping fearless through the night. One, the light of God's own pres ence, O'er His ransomed people shed, Chasing far the gloom and terror, Brightening all the path we tread: One, the object of our journey, One, the faith which never tires, One, the earnest looking forward, One, the hope our God inspires. One, the strain the lips of thousands Lift as from the heart of one; One the conflict, one the peril, Onward therefore, pilgrim brothers! Onward with the Cross our aid! Bear its shame, and fight its battle, Till we rest beneath its shade! Soon shall come the great awaking; Soon the rending of the tomb; Then, the scattering of all shadows, And the end of toil and gloom! S. Baring-Gould A THOUSAND creeds and battle-cries, A thousand warring social schemes, A thousand new moralities, And twenty thousand thousand dreams. Each on his own anarchic way, But ah, beneath the struggling foam, When a storm and change are on the deep, How quietly the tides come home, And how the depths of sea-shine sleep; And we who march toward a goal, Destroying only to fulfil The law, the law of that great soul Which moves beneath your alien will; We, that like foemen meet the past Because we bring the future, know We only fight to achieve at last Reunion in the truths that stand When all our wars are rolled away; Reunion of the heart and hand And of the prayers wherewith we pray; Reunion in the common needs, The common strivings of mankind: Reunion of our warring creeds In the one God that dwells behind Forward! - what use in idle words? Forward, O warriors of the soul! There will be breaking up of swords When that new morning makes us whole. Alfred Noyes |