Elias: An Epic of the Ages. Whitney Orson Ferguson

      Whate'er betide, the soul that sins atones: 960

      The grievous sceptre and the slaughtering sword,

      The bloodstained ax, the gory guillotine,

      The tyrant wrong, the tyrant-trampling right,

      Join to make justice of the direst doom.

      All oracles of light, all arms of power,

      Preparers of the way one face before;

      Their strength but part of His omnipotence,

      Their fault God-given lest man be deified,

      And pride in him dethrone humility.

      Declare His truth, His generations tell, 970

      O'er whom the many marveled, some to say

      Elias, slain of Herod, lives again;

      While some said Jeremias[39]. Who say ye,

      Man-hated, though God-missioned ministers,

      Unctioned with fire, anointed from on High!

      Guardians yet watchful o'er the widening fold!

      Who say ye was your Master, Teacher, Friend?

      "Word that was God, is God, and shall be aye;

      Sire by the spirit, and by flesh the Son;

      In glory with the Father ere the world, 980

      And now with that same glory glorified.

      Image and likeness of creation's cause,

      Mirror and model of humanity[40],

      Of man the parent and the prototype.

      Lover of light, hating and righting wrong;

      Anointed Lord of Lords and Sire 'mid Sons;

      The Sole-begotten, He that doeth here

      All He hath seen erstwhile the Father do.

      Elias? Nay, Messiah, Saviour, King,

      That Greater whom Elias said would come." 990

      Sufficeth it. What now, ye learned ones,

      School-taught, self-sent, man-missioned ministers,

      Creators of a vain divinity!

      Daring the thunders of the decalogue,

      Disputing Moses, Christ, and prophets all,

      Gird up your loins and answer—What of God?

      "God?—Mystery incomprehensible[41];

      All things made He from nothing"—Hold, enough!

      Night and gross darkness—darken it no more.

      Yet give to man his meed. Hath he not kept, 1000

      Albeit in empty urn, the Name of Names,

      And toiled and suffered sore transmitting it

      From sire to son through shaded centuries?

      Messiah's coming did he not proclaim?

      And, trodden yet beneath oppression's heel,

      Hoards he not still the precious prophecy?

      The Jew, the Christian, each hath played his part,

      Each as a star[42] hath heralded a morn.

      And what of him, the fierce iconoclast,

      Agnostic, doubting or denying all, 1010

      Ofttimes in hate and horrid ribaldry?

      Maintains he not life's equilibrium,

      A tempering shadow to the torrid beam,

      A brake upon the wheel of bigotry,

      A jet to cool fanaticism's flame,

      Unquelled, devouring, devastating all?

      An angel, past control, a demon were.

      Bold unbelief, reform's rough pioneer,

      Unwittingly a warrior for the Cross,

      A weapon for the right[43] he ridicules. 1020

      God's perfect plan an ocean is, where range

      As minnows, monsters, of the wide wave-realm,

      Men's causes, creeds, and systems manifold;

      Free as the will of Him who freedom willed,

      Within the bounds ordained by law divine.

      E'en Lucifer, arch-foe to liberty,

      Is free, though fettered to his fallen sphere;

      Enticing, tempting all, compelling none,

      And aiding aye the Power he fain would foil.

      All human schemes, all hell's conspiracies, 1030

      All chance, all accident, all agency,

      All loves, hates, hopes, despairs, and blasphemies,

      All rights, all wrongs, to one high purpose bend.

      No backward glance gives progress. Upward! on!

      Life triumphs ever in death's victory.

      Dross hath its ministry no less than gold;

      And honest, erring zeal, wherever found,

      Hath wrought more good than ill to humankind.

      But morn must rise, and night dismiss her stars;

      And ocean summon home his seas and streams; 1040

      And truth the perfect, truth the part fulfill,

      As knowledge faith, as history prophecy.

      Day from his quiver drew a shining shaft,

      And 'thwart the night the flaming arrow flew.

      Hark, to a cry that cleaves the wilderness,

      Pealing the clarion prelude to the dawn!