Poems on Evil

Behold, the grave of a wicked man,
And near it, a stern spirit.

There came a drooping maid with violets,
But the spirit grasped her arm.
"No flowers for him," he said.
The maid wept:
"Ah, I loved him."
But the spirit, grim and frowning:
"No flowers for him."

Now, this is it --
If the spirit was just,
Why did the maid weep?

by Stephen Crane.

Here’s the volume: stain nor blot
Mars a leaf to-day;
Sin and folly, they are not;
Sorrow is away.
Look! Each page is white and clear,
And’t is morning of the year.

Of the days that swiftly run
This will not be mute:
Good or evil said or done,
Sweet or bitter fruit,
What shall be the record, dear,
At the evening of the year?

by Ina D. Coolbrith.

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Sleep, little Baby, sleep,
The holy Angels love thee,
And guard thy bed, and keep
A blessed watch above thee.
No spirit can come near
Nor evil beast to harm thee:
Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear
Where nothing need alarm thee.

The Love which doth not sleep,
The eternal arms around thee:
The shepherd of the sheep
In perfect love has found thee.
Sleep through the holy night,
Christ-kept from snare and sorrow,
Until thou wake to light
And love and warmth to-morrow.

by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

I caught, for a second, across the crowd--
Just for a second, and barely that--
A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed,
Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim'd hat--
With small gray eyes, of a look as keen
As the long, sharp nose that grew between.

And I said: 'Tis a sketch of Nature's own,
Drawn i' the dark o' the moon, I swear,
On a tatter of Fate that the winds have blown
Hither and thither and everywhere--
With its keen little sinister eyes of gray,
And nose like the beak of a bird of prey!

by James Whitcomb Riley.

Why should I join with those in Play,
In whom I've no delight,
Who curse and swear, but never pray,
Who call ill Names, and fight.

I hate to hear a wanton Song,
Their Words offend my Ears:
I should not dare defile my Tongue
With Language such as theirs.

Away from Fools I'll turn my Eyes,
Nor with the Scoffers go;
I would be walking with the Wise,
That wiser I may grow.

From one rude Boy that's us'd to mock
Ten learn the wicked Jest;
One sickly Sheep infects the Flock,
And poysons all the rest.

by Isaac Watts.

The faintness of my heart
When strife and evil rose,
The worse and lesser part
Which it for ever chose,
God knows.

The passions that have bound
My soul with chains of earth.
The sorrows that have found
Their home with me since birth.
The dearth

Of all these nobler things
That make existence fair,
The stain of sin that clings
Until we cease to care
For prayer,

All this must I atone:
And though eternal woes
My banished soul alone,
Must bear without repose,
Yet I am not afraid
To know God knows.

by Radclyffe Hall.

Do you think, oh shrewd deceiver,
Because your well-laid plan,
For the death of a fellow-being,
Or the wreck of a fellow-man,
Was plotted alone at midnight,
When not a soul was about,
And carried out in secret,
That it will not find you out?

You have given it breath and being,
You have given it wings to fly;
It has gone forth a black-winged raven
To follow you 'till you die.
Like Poe's, it will knock on your chamber door,
It will haunt you the earth about,
It will trouble your peace at the midnight hour.
Be sure it will find you out.

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman.

Oh make not light of love, my lady dear,
For, from that sweetest source doth ever flow
All that is likest heaven on earth below.
Ill it beseems who worthiest love appear,
To scoff at their own worship;—if to you
All that a serving soul, tender and true,
Can bring of best and holiest offering,
Seems but a slight and unregarded thing—
Then are you, with your grace and loveliness,
A wicked phantom, with an evil spell,
Luring warm human hearts to a cold hell,
Where in a barren, blighted emptiness,
Self-love and vanity together dwell;
Companions curst, cruel, and comfortless.

by Frances Anne Kemble.

In law an infant, and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Women his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal when others just begin:
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And what was once his bliss appears his bane.

by George Gordon Byron.

He who possesses virtue at its best,
Or greatness in the true sense of the word,
Has one day started even with that herd
Whose swift feet now speed, but at sin's behest.
It is the same force in the human breast
Which makes men gods or demons. If we gird
Those strong emotions by which we are stirred
With might of will and purpose, heights unguessed
Shall dawn for us; or if we give them sway
We can sink down and consort with the lost.
All virtue is worth just the price it cost.
Black sin is oft white truth, that missed its way,
And wandered off in paths not understood.
Twin-born I hold great evil and great good.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Custom in sin.

Let the wild leopards of the wood
Put off the spots that nature gives,
Then may the wicked turn to God,
And change their tempers and their lives.

As well might Ethiopian slaves
Wash out the darkness of their skin,
The deed as well might leave their graves,
As old transgressors cease to sin.

Where vice has held its empire long,
'Twill not endure the least control;
None but a power divinely strong
Can turn the current of the soul.

Great God! I own thy power divine
That works to change this heart of mine;
I would be formed anew, and bless
The wonders of creating grace.

by Isaac Watts.

Whatever the strength of our foes is now,
Whatever it may have been,
This is our slogan, and this our vow-
They shall not win, they shall not win.


Though out of the darkness they call the aid
Of the evil forces of Sin,
We utter our slogan unafraid-
They shall not win, they shall not win.


We know we are right, and know they are wrong.
So to God above and within-
We make our vow and we sing our song
They shall not win, they shall not win.


It rises over the shriek of shell,
And over the cannons' din:
Our slogan shall scatter the hosts of Hell-
They shall not win, they shall not win.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

When Time is done at last, and the last Spring
Fadeth on earth, and thy gaze seeketh mine,
Watch well for one whose face beareth for sign
The legend of a soul’s refashioning:
As I shall watch for one whose pale hands bring

The first faint violet, and know them thine
Grown pitiful and come to build Love’s shrine
Where the old Aprils wait, unfaltering.
Then the great floods between us will retire,
And the long path I follow down will grow


To be the path thy climbing feet desire;
Until we meet at last, made glad, and know
The cleansing hands that made my soul as snow
Have kept alive in thine the ancient fire.

by Francis Joseph Sherman.

SHE bowed her face among them all, as one
By one they rose and went. A little scorn
They showed—a very little. More forlorn
She seemed because of that: she might have grown
Proud else in her turn, and have so made known
What she well knew—that the free—hearted corn,
Kissed by the hot air freely all the morn,
Is better than the weed which has its own
Foul glut in secret. Both her white breasts heaved
Like heaving water with their weight of lace;
And her long tresses, full of musk and myrrh,
Were shaken from the braids her fingers weaved,
So that they hid the shame in her pale face.
Then I stept forth, and bowed addressing her.

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

O Wondrous dreamer, with thy power divine,
How all our pilgrim-life thy dream hath told
Our load of sin, our hopes, our doubts so cold,
The fearful battle with the foe malign;
And Beulah's beauteous land, where none repine
We long to see ; we dare with joy ' be bold,'
While we with thee in living faith behold
The New Jerusalem on high to shine.
When, as thy gaze beyond the gates did pass,
Which open'd wide to let thy pilgrims in,
And thou didst feast thine eyes, oft filled with tears,
Well may we feel that thou could'st wish, alas !
That thou had'st done with this world's care and sin,
To rest amid that throng for endless years.

by John Bunyan.

It ended, and the morrow brought the task.
Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in
By shutting all too zealous for their sin:
Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.
But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!
He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers:
A languid humour stole among the hours,
And if their smiles encountered, he went mad,
And raged deep inward, till the light was brown
Before his vision, and the world, forgot,
Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.
A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown
The pit of infamy: and then again
He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove
To ape the magnanimity of love,
And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.

by George Meredith.

Is it a sin, to wish that I may meet thee
In that dim world whither our spirits stray,
When sleep and darkness follow life and day?
Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee
With all that love that I must die concealing?
Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing
The agony that preys upon my soul?
Is't not enough through the long, loathsome day,
To hold each look and word in stern control?
May I not wish the staring sunlight gone,
Day and its thousand torturing moments done,
And prying sights and sounds of men away?
O still and silent Night! when all things sleep,
Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep:
Come, with thy visioned hopes and blessings now!
I dream the only happiness I know.

by Frances Anne Kemble.

I do not cry, beloved, neither curse.
Silence and strength, these two at least are good.
He gave me sun and start and aught He could,
But not a woman's love; for that is hers.

He sealed her heart from sage and questioner --
Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave.
And if she give it to a drunken slave,
The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.

Only this much: if one, deserving well,
Touching your thin young hands and making suit,
Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute,
Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;

Prophet and poet be he over sod,
Prince among angels in the highest place,
God help me, I will smite him on the face,
Before the glory of the face of God.

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

He found her by the ocean's moaning verge,
Nor any wicked change in her discerned;
And she believed his old love had returned,
Which was her exultation, and her scourge.
She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed
The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.
She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.
She dared not say, 'This is my breast: look in.'
But there's a strength to help the desperate weak.
That night he learned how silence best can speak
The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.
About the middle of the night her call
Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.
'Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!' she said.
Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

by George Meredith.

OUT upon the bleak hillside, the bleak hillside, he lay--
Her lips were red, and red the stream that slipped his life away.
Ah, crimson, crimson were her lips, but his were turning gray.

The troubled sky seemed bending low, bending low to hide
The foam-white face so wild upturned from off the bleak hillside--
White as the beaten foam her face, and she was wond'rous eyed.

The soft, south-wind came creeping up, creeping stealthily
To breathe upon his clay-cold face--but all too cold was he,
Too cold for you to warm, south-wind, since cold at heart was she!

Sweet morning peeped above the hill, above the hill to find
The shattered, useless, godlike thing the night had left behind--
Wept the sweet morn her crystal tears that love should prove unkind!

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.

The Lord is my Shepherd, no want shall I know;
I feed in green pastures, safe folded I rest;
He leadeth my soul where the still waters flow,
Restores me when wand’ring, redeems when oppressed.

Through valley and shadow of death though I stray,
Since Thou art my Guardian, no evil I fear;
Thy rod shall defend me, Thy staff be my stay;
No harm can befall, with my Comforter near.

In midst of affliction my table is spread;
With blessings unmeasured my cup runneth o’er;
With perfume and oil Thou anointest my head;
O what shall I ask of Thy providence more?

Let goodness and mercy, my bountiful God,
Still follow my steps till I meet Thee above;
I seek, by the path which my forefathers trod,
Through land of their sojourn, Thy Kingdom of love.

by James Montgomery.

Yes, I being
the terrible puppet of my dreams, shall
lavish this on you-
the dense mine of the orchid, split in two.
And the fingernails that cinch such
environs?
And what about the staunch neighbor tabulations,
with all their zest for doom?

I'm wearing badges
that cancel all your kindness. Forthright
I watch the silver Zeppelin
destroy the sky. To
stir your confidence?
To rouse what sanctions-?

The silver strophe… the canto
bright with myth… Such
distances leap landward without
evil smile. And, as for me….

The window weight throbs in its blind
partition. To extinguish what I have of faith.
Yes, light. And it is always
always, always the eternal rainbow
And it is always the day, the farewell day unkind.

by Harold Hart Crane.

Money taketh town and wall,
Fort and ramp without a blow;
Money moves the merchants all,
While the tides shall ebb and flow;
Money maketh Evil show
Like the Good, and Truth like lies:
These alone can ne'er bestow
Youth, and health, and Paradise.

Money maketh festival,
Wine she buys, and beds can strow;
Round the necks of captains tall,
Money wins them chains to throw,
Marches soldiers to and fro,
Gaineth ladies with sweet eyes:
These alone can ne'er bestow
Youth, and health, and Paradise.

Money wins the priest his stall;
Money mitres buys, I trow,
Red hats for the Cardinal,
Abbeys for the novice low;
Money maketh sin as snow,
Place of penitence supplies:
These alone can ne'er bestow
Youth, and health, and Paradise.

by Andrew Lang.

Matthew xiv 6-11

Vain, sinful art! who first did fit
Thy lewd loathed motions unto sounds,
And made grave music like wild wit
Err in loose airs beyond her bounds?

What fires hath he heaped on his head?
Since to his sins (as needs it must,)
His art adds still (though he be dead,)
New fresh accounts of blood and lust.

Leave then young sorceress; the ice
Will those coy spirits cast asleep,
Which teach thee now to please his eyes
Who doth thy loathsome mother keep.

But thou hast pleased so well, he swears,
And gratifies thy sin with vows:
His shameless lust in public wears,
And to thy soft arts strongly bows.

Skilful enchantress and true bred!
Who out of evil can bring forth good?
Thy mother's nets in thee were spread,
She tempts to incest, thou to blood.

by Henry Vaughan.

The inward witness to Christianity.

1 Jn. 5:10.

Questions and doubts be heard no more,
Let Christ and joy be all our theme;
His Spirit seals his gospel sure,
To every soul that trusts in him.

Jesus, thy witness speaks within;
The mercy which thy words reveal
Refines the heart from sense and sin,
And stamps its own celestial seal.

'Tis God's inimitable hand
That molds and forms the heart anew;
Blasphemers can no more withstand,
But bow, and own thy doctrine true.

The guilty wretch that trusts thy blood
Finds peace and pardon at the cross;
The sinful soul, averse to God,
Believes and loves his Maker's laws.

Learning and wit may cease their strife,
When miracles with glory shine;
The voice that calls the dead to life
Must be almighty and divine.

by Isaac Watts.

Should it occasion much surprise
That criminals should deal in blame,
As all of us, and recognise
The full depth of another's shame.
The burglar blames the bigamist
As something partially insane,
And Bluebeards equally insist
That burglars are a sinful bane.

And, getting further up the scale,
To normal men, like you and I,
The rule is never known to fail,
While egotism throned on high,
Sets cunning traps for you and me,
Blind with the illusion of our worth,
To ape the smirking Pharisee,
And see sin stalking o'er the earth.

In a community of saints,
Where all sins save fault-finding die,
One still might look for grave complaints
Concerning haloes worn awry.
But as this sinful earth is trod,
He who, of Jezebel or Cain,
Says, 'There, but for the grace of God,
Go I,' is the most nearly sane.

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

Bowed with a sense of sin, I faint
Beneath the complicated load;
Father, attend my deep complaint,
I am Thy creature, Thou my God.

Though I have broke Thy righteous law,
Yet with me let Thy Spirit stay;
Thyself from me do not withdraw,
Nor take my spark of hope away.

Mercy unlimited is Thine;
God of the penitent Thou art;
The saving power of blood divine
Shall ease the anguish of my heart.

Then let not sin my ruin be,
Gives me in Thee my rest to find:
Jesus, the sick have need of Thee,-
Thou great Physician of mankind.

In my salvation, Lord, display
The triumphs of abounding grace;
Tell me my guilt is done away,
And turn my mourning into praise.

Then shall I add my feeble song
To theirs who chant Thy praise on high,
And spread with an immortal tongue
Thy glory through the echoing sky.

by Augustus Montague Toplady.

Physician of my sin-sick soul,
To thee I bring my case;
My raging malady control,
And heal me by thy grace.

Pity the anguish I endure,
See how I mourn and pine;
For never can I hope a cure
From any hand but thine.

I would disclose my whole complaint,
But where shall I begin?
No words of mine can fully paint
That worst distemper, sin.

It lies not in a single part,
But through my frame is spread;
A burning fever in my heart,
A palsy in my head.

It makes me deaf, and dumb, and blind,
And impotent and lame;
And overclouds, and fills my mind,
With folly, fear, and shame.

A thousand evil thoughts intrude
Tumultuous in my breast;
Which indispose me for my food,
And rob me of my rest.

Lord I am sick, regard my cry,
And set my spirit free;
Say, canst thou let a sinner die,
Who longs to live to thee?

by John Newton.

Ah! the poor little blackamoor, see there he goes,
And the blood gushes out from his half frozen toes,
And his legs are so thin you may see the very bones,
As he goes shiver, shiver, on the sharp cutting stones.

He was once a negro boy, and a merry boy was he,
Playing outlandish plays, by the tall palm tree;
Or bathing in the river, like a brisk water rat,
And at night sleeping sound, on a little bit of mat.


But there came some wicked people, and they stole him far away,
And then good bye to palm-tree tall, and merry merry play;
For they took him from his house and home, and ev'ry body dear,
And now, poor little negro boy, he's come a begging here.


And fie upon the wicked folks who did this cruel thing!
I wish some mighty nobleman would go and tell the king;
For to steal him from his house and home must be a crying sin,
Though he was a little negro boy, and had a sooty skin.

by Ann Taylor.

THEY SAY he was thrown and run over,
But that is sheer nonsense, of course:
I taught him to ride when a kiddy,
And Dan wasn’t thrown from his horse.

The horse that Dan rode was a devil—
The kind of a brute I despise,
With nasty white eyelashes fringing
A pair of red, sinister eyes.

And a queerly-shaped spot on his forehead,
Where I put a conical ball
The day that he murdered Dan Denver,
The pluckiest rider of all.

’Twas after the races were over
And Duggan (a Talbragar man)
And two of the Denvers, and Barney
Were trying a gallop with Dan.

Dan’s horse on a sudden got vicious,
And reared up an’ plunged in the race,
Then threw back his head, hitting Dan like
A sledge-hammer, full in the face.

Dan stopped and got down, stood a moment,
Then fell to the ground like a stone,
And died about ten minutes after;
But they’re liars who say he was thrown.

by Henry Lawson.

'Tis Master Fitch, the editor;
He takes an holiday.
Now wherefore, venerable sir,
So resolutely gay?

He lifts his head, he laughs aloud,
Odzounds! 'tis drear to see!
'Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd
Will soon be far from me.

'Full many a year I've striven well
To freeze the caitiffs out
By making this good town a Hell,
But still they hang about.

'They maken mouths and eke they grin
At the dollar limit game;
And they are holpen in that sin
By many a wicked dame.

'In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell
My bruised mind to ease.
Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell!
Hail, unfamiliar trees!'

Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie,
And all the country folk
Besought him that he come not nigh
The deadly poison oak!

He smiled a cheerful smile (the day
Was straightway overcast)
The poison oak along his way
Was blighted as he passed!

by Ambrose Bierce.

The word of Christ, our Lord,
With whom we have to do;
Is sharper than a two-edged sword,
To pierce the sinner through.

Swift as the lightnings blaze
When aweful thunders roll,
It fills the conscience with amaze,
And penetrates the soul.

No heart can he concealed
From his all-piercing eyes;
Each thought and purpose stands revealed,
Naked, without disguise.

He sees his peoples' fears,
He notes their mournful cry;
He counts their sighs and falling tears,
And helps them from on high.

Though feeble is their good,
It has his kind regard;
Yea, all they would do, if they could,
Shall find a sure reward.

He sees the wicked too,
And will repay them soon,
For all the evil deeds they do,
And all they would have done.

Since all our secret ways
Are marked and known by thee;
Afford us, Lord, thy light of grace
That we ourselves may see.

by John Newton.

In evil long I took delight,
Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight,
And stopped my wild career.

I saw One hanging on a tree,
In agony and blood,
Who fixed His languid eyes on me,
As near His cross I stood.

Sure, never to my latest breath,
Can I forget that look;
It seemed to charge me with His death,
Though not a word He spoke.

My conscience felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair,
I saw my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there.

A second look He gave, which said,
“I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom paid;
I die that thou mayst live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief and mournful joy,
My spirit now is fill'd,
That I should such a life destroy,
Yet live by Him I kill'd.

by John Newton.

Let us adore the grace that seeks
To draw our hearts above!
Attend, 'tis God the Saviour speaks,
And every word is love.

Though filled with awe, before his throne
Each angel veils his face;
He claims a people for his own
Amongst our sinful race.

Careless, awhile, they live in sin,
Enslaved to Satan's pow'r;
But they obey the call divine,
In his appointed hour.

Come forth, he says, no more pursue
The paths that lead to death;
Look up, a bleeding Saviour view,
Look, and be saved by faith.

My sons and daughters you shall be
Through the atoning blood;
And you shall claim, and find, in me,
A Father, and a God.

Lord, speak these words to every heart,
By thine all-powerful voice;
That we may now from sin depart,
And make thy love our choice.

If now, we learn to seek thy face
By Christ, the living way;
We'll praise thee for this hour of grace,
Through an eternal day.

by John Newton.

(' Women are often tempters to sexual sin and delight in it. . . A recent report of a female probation officer relates that some of the girls who, as we may say euphemistically' had gone astray,' owned to her that they enjoyed the life of the evil house.'
- The Case Against Woman Suffrage, published by the Man-Suffrage Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women.)

IT may be so, good sir, it may be so,
Not all who sin are tempted - that we know:
It may be darker things than this are true,
And yet, upon my soul, if I were you ­
A man, no longer young, at peace, secured
From all that tempting women have endured
Of poverty and ignorance and fear
And joy that make youth terrible and dear,
If I were you, before I took my pen
And wrote those words to hearten other men,
And give them greater sense of moral ease
In the long score of common sins like these,
If I were you, I would have held my hand
In fire.
- Ah, well; you would not understand.

by Alice Duer Miller.

As parched in the barren sands
Beneath a burning sky,
The worthless bramble with'ring stands,
And only grows to die.

Such is the sinner's aweful case,
Who makes the world his trust;
And dares his confidence to place
In vanity and dust.

A secret curse destroys his root,
And dries his moisture up;
He lives awhile, but bears no fruit,
Then dies without a hope.

But happy he whose hopes depend
Upon the Lord alone;
The soul that trusts in such a friend,
Can ne'er be overthrown.

Though gourds should wither, cisterns break,
And creature-comforts die;
No change his solid hope can shake,
Or stop his sure supply.

So thrives and blooms the tree whose roots
By constant streams are fed;
Arrayed in green, and rich in fruits,
It rears its branching head.

It thrives, though rain should be denied,
And drought around prevail;
'Tis planted by a river's side
Whose waters cannot fail.

by John Newton.

The blessedness of saints, and misery of sinners.

ver. 1-3

Blest are the undefiled in heart,
Whose ways are right and clean;
Who never from thy law depart,
But fly from every sin.

Blest are the men that keep thy word,
And practise thy commands;
With their whole heart they seek the Lord,
And serve thee with their hands.

ver. 165

Great is their peace who love thy law;
How firm their souls abide!
Nor can a bold temptation draw
Their steady feet aside.

ver. 6

Then shall my heart have inward joy,
And keep my face from shame,
When all thy statutes I obey,
And honor all thy name.

ver. 21,118

But haughty sinners God will hate,
The proud shall die accursed;
The sons of falsehood and deceit
Are trodden to the dust.

ver. 119,155

Vile as the dross the wicked are;
And those that leave thy ways
Shall see salvation from afar,
But never taste thy grace.

by Isaac Watts.

v.20-26
L. M.
Sincerity proved and rewarded.

Lord, thou hast seen my soul sincere,
Hast made thy truth and love appear;
Before mine eyes I set thy laws,
And thou hast owned my righteous cause.

Since I have learned thy holy ways,
I've walked upright before thy face;
Or if my feet did e'er depart,
'Twas never with a wicked heart.

What sore temptations broke my rest!
What wars and strugglings in my breast!
But through thy grace, that reigns within,
I guard against my darling sin:

That sin which close besets me still,
That works and strives against my will:
When shall thy Spirit's sovereign power
Destroy it, that it rise no more?

[With an impartial hand, the Lord
Deals out to mortals their reward;
The kind and faithful souls shall find
A God as faithful and as kind.

The just and pure shall ever say,
Thou art more pure, more just than they;
And men that love revenge shall know
God hath an arm of vengeance too.]

by Isaac Watts.

A living and a dead faith. Collected from several scriptures.

Mistaken souls, that dream of heav'n,
And make their empty boast
Of inward joys, and sins forgiv'n,
While they are slaves to lust!

Vain are our fancies, airy flights,
If faith be cold and dead;
None but a living power unites
To Christ the living head.

'Tis faith that changes all the heart;
'Tis faith that works by love;
That bids all sinful joys depart,
And lifts the thoughts above.

'Tis faith that conquers earth and hell
By a celestial power;
This is the grace that shall prevail
In the decisive hour.

[Faith must obey her Father's will,
As well as trust his grace;
A pard'ning God is jealous still
For his own holiness.]

When from the curse he sets us free,
He makes our natures clean;
Nor would he send his Son to be
The minister of sin.

[His Spirit purifies our frame,
And seals our peace with God;
Jesus and his salvation came
By water and by blood.]

by Isaac Watts.