To My Friend A. B.

The veil of care is lifted from his face!

How smooth the brow where toil had left its trace!

How confident the look, how calm the eyes

Once keen with life and restless enterprise!

And gone the lines that marked the spirit's haste

To do its work, nor any moment waste.

Imperial peace and beauty crown his head,

God's superscription writ upon the dead.

Behold, herein, his dream, his inmost thought

As if in time-washed Parian marble wrought.

Truly he read the law we must obey:

Man moulds the image and God gives the clay,

And if it's cast of God or C�sar is

To each all render what is rightly his.

Thousands at noontide are climbing the hills under

Nain, like an army

Fleeing the carnage of war, seeking where it may

rest and take counsel;

Some with the blind or the palsied, some bearing

the sick on their shoulders,

Lagging but laboring hard, so they be not too far

from the Prophet;

Some bringing only a burden of deep and inveterate

longing.

Hard by the gate of the city their Captain halts

and is waiting.

Closer the multitude presses and widens afar on

the hillside;

Thronged are the ways to the city with eager and

hastening comers.

Heard ye? A man was delivered from death by

his power, and the story

Crosses the murmuring host like a wave passing

over the waters,

How at the touch of his finger this day, the dead

rose and was living.

Hushed are the people; the Prophet is speaking;

his hand is uplifted—

Lo! the frail hand that ere long was to stop the mad

rush of the tempest.

Quickly their voices are hushed, and the fear of

Jehovah is on them.

Jesus stood high on a hillock. His face, so divinely

impassioned,

Shone with the light that of old had illumined the

dreams of the prophets.

Gently he spake, like a shepherd who calleth his

flock to green pastures.

Hiding her face and apart from the people, a woman

stood weeping,

Daughter of woe! on a rosary strung with her

tears ever counting

Treasures her heart had surrendered and writ on

her brow was the record.

Hope and the love of her kindred and peace and

all pleasure had left her

Chained to the pillar of life like a captive, and

Shame was her keeper.

Long spake the Prophet, and scarcely had finished

when came the afflicted,

Loudly entreating: "Make way for the blind!" and

the people were parted,

Silent with pity, and many were suffered to pass;

but the woman

Felt no miraculous touch, for the press kept her

back and rebuked her.

"Why comest thou to the Prophet?" they said.

"Get thee hence and be silent;

"He hath no mercy for thee or thy kind"; and

the woman stood weeping.

Now when the even was come over Nain, and the

bridge of the twilight,

Silently floating aloft on the deepening flood of the

shadows,

Rested its timbers of gold on the summits of Tabor

and Hermon,

Jesus came, weary, to sup at the house of one

Simon, a Pharisee,

Dwelling at Nain. Far behind him the woman

came, following slowly;

Entered the gate in the dusk, and when all were

reclining at supper,

Stood by the Prophet, afraid, like a soul that has

come to its judgment,

Weeping, her head bowing low, her hair hanging

loose on her shoulders.

Then there was silence, and Jesus was moved, so

he spake to the woman:

"Daughter, what grieves thee so sore?" and she

spake not, but dumb with her weeping

Sank at his feet; and her tears fell upon them like

rain, and she kissed them.

Simon, amazed when the Prophet forbade not the

woman to touch him,

Rose to rebuke her; but seeing His face, how it

shone with compassion,

Waited; and Jesus then spake: "I have somewhat

to say to thee, Simon.

"A man had two debtors of pence, and the one

owed five hundred,

"The other owed fifty; and when they had nothing

to pay he forgave them

"All that they owed; wherefore which of the two

will most love him?"

Simon said, thoughtfully: "He, I suppose, to whom

most was forgiven."

Jesus made answer: "Thou judgest well. Consider

this woman.

"Weary with travel and sore were my feet, but

thou gavest no water;

"She, to wash them, hath given the tears of her

love and her sorrow,

"Wiping them dry with her hair; and hath kissed

them and bathed them with ointment.

"Wherefore, O woman, weep not! I forgive thee

thy sins which are many.

"Go thou in peace."

And those who were with Him at meat were astonished.

"Lo! she spoke not, she asked not and yet He forgave

her," they whispered.

Dear to my God are the rills that flow from the

mountains of sorrow

Over the faces of men and in them is a rainbow of

promise.

Strong is the prayer of the rills that oft bathed the

feet of The Master.

THE END.