A pause.

The day is drawing to its close;
And what good deeds, since first it rose,
Have I presented, Lord, to thee,
As offsprings of my ministry? 
What wrong repressed, what right maintained,
What struggle passed, what victory gained,
What good attempted and attained? 
Feeble, at best, is my endeavor! 
I see, but cannot reach, the height
That lies forever in the light;
And yet forever and forever,
When seeming just within my grasp,
I feel my feeble hands unclasp,
And sink discouraged into night! 
For thine own purpose, thou hast sent
The strife and the discouragement!

A pause.

Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck? 
Why keep me pacing to and fro
Amid these aisles of sacred gloom,
Counting my footsteps as I go,
And marking with each step a tomb? 
Why should the world for thee make room,
And wait thy leisure and thy beck? 
Thou comest in the hope to hear
Some word of comfort and of cheer. 
What can I say?  I cannot give
The counsel to do this and live;
But rather, firmly to deny
The tempter, though his power be strong,
And, inaccessible to wrong,
Still like a martyr live and die!

A pause.

The evening air grows dusk and brown;
I must go forth into the town,
To visit beds of pain and death,
Of restless limbs, and quivering breath,
And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes
That see, through tears, the sun go down,
But never more shall see it rise. 
The poor in body and estate,
The sick and the disconsolate,
Must not on man’s convenience wait.

Goes out.

Enter LUCIFER, as a Priest.

LUCIFER, with a genuflexion, mocking. 
This is the Black Pater-noster. 
God was my foster,
He fostered me
Under the book of the Palm-tree! 
St. Michael was my dame. 
He was born at Bethlehem,
He was made of flesh and blood. 
God send me my right food,
My right food, and shelter too,
That I may to yon kirk go,
To read upon yon sweet book
Which the mighty God of heaven shook
Open, open, hell’s gates! 
Shut, shut, heaven’s gates! 
All the devils in the air
The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!

Looking round the church.

What a darksome and dismal place! 
I wonder that any man has the face
To call such a hole the House of the Lord,
And the gate of Heaven,—­yet such is the word. 
Ceiling, and walls, and windows old,
Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould;
Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs,
Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs! 
The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons
Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans,
With about as much real edification
As if a great Bible, bound in lead,
Had fallen, and struck them on the head;
And I ought to remember that sensation! 
Here stands the holy-water stoup!