The power is lost to self-deceive
  With shallow forms of make-believe. 
  We walk at high noon, and the bells
  Call to a thousand oracles,
  But the sound deafens, and the light
  Is stronger than our dazzled sight;
  The letters of the sacred Book
  Glimmer and swim beneath our look;
  Still struggles in the Age’s breast
  With deepening agony of quest
  The old entreaty:  ’Art thou He,
  Or look we for the Christ to be?’

  “God should be most where man is least;
  So, where is neither church nor priest,
  And never rag of form or creed
  To clothe the nakedness of need,—­
  Where farmer-folk in silence meet,—­
  I turn my bell-unsummoned feet;
  I lay the critic’s glass aside,
  I tread upon my lettered pride,
  And, lowest-seated, testify
  To the oneness of humanity;
  Confess the universal want,
  And share whatever Heaven may grant. 
  He findeth not who seeks his own,
  The soul is lost that’s saved alone. 
  Not on one favored forehead fell
  Of old the fire-tongued miracle,
  But flamed o’er all the thronging host
  The baptism of the Holy Ghost;
  Heart answers heart:  in one desire
  The blending lines of prayer aspire;
  ‘Where, in my name, meet two or three,’
  Our Lord hath said, ‘I there will be!’

  “So sometimes comes to soul and sense
  The feeling which is evidence
  That very near about us lies
  The realm of spiritual mysteries. 
  The sphere of the supernal powers
  Impinges on this world of ours. 
  The low and dark horizon lifts,
  To light the scenic terror shifts;
  The breath of a diviner air
  Blows down the answer of a prayer:—­
  That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt
  A great compassion clasps about,
  And law and goodness, love and force,
  Are wedded fast beyond divorce. 
  Then duty leaves to love its task,
  The beggar Self forgets to ask;
  With smile of trust and folded hands,
  The passive soul in waiting stands
  To feel, as flowers the sun and dew,
  The One true Life its own renew.

  “So, to the calmly gathered thought
  The innermost of truth is taught,
  The mystery dimly understood,
  That love of God is love of good,
  And, chiefly, its divinest trace
  In Him of Nazareth’s holy face;
  That to be saved is only this,—­
  Salvation from our selfishness,
  From more than elemental fire,
  The soul’s unsanctified desire,
  From sin itself, and not the pain
  That warns us of its chafing chain;
  That worship’s deeper meaning lies
  In mercy, and not sacrifice,
  Not proud humilities of sense
  And posturing of penitence,
  But love’s unforced obedience;
  That Book and Church and Day are given
  For man, not God,—­for earth, not heaven,—­
  The blessed means to holiest ends,
  Not masters, but benignant friends;
  That the dear Christ dwells not afar,
  The king of some remoter star,
  Listening, at times, with flattered ear,
  To homage wrung from selfish fear,
  But here, amidst the poor and blind,
  The bound and suffering of our kind,
  In works we do, in prayers we pray,
  Life of our life, He lives to-day.”