Jesus, The Ideal Life
Jesus, there is no dearer name than Thine,
Which Time has blazoned on his mighty scroll;
No wreaths nor garlands ever did entwine
So fair a temple of so vast a soul.
There every virtue set his triumph seal;
Wisdom conjoined with strength and radiant grace,
In a sweet copy heaven to reveal,
And stamp Perfection on a mortal face.
Once on the earth wert Thou, before men’s eyes
That did not half Thy beauteous brightness see;
E’en as the emmet does not read the skies,
Nor our weak orbs look through immensity.
—Theodore Parker.
Lead Me Deeper Into Life
Lead me, yea, lead me deeper into life,
This suffering, human life wherein Thou livest
And breathest still, and bholdest Thy way divine.
‘Tis here, O pitying Christ, where Thee I seek,
Here where the strife is fiercest; where the sun
Beats down upon the highway thronged with men,
And in the raging mart. Oh! deeper lead
My soul into the living world of souls
Where Thou dost move.
But lead me, Man Divine,
Where’er Thou willest, only that I may find
At the long journey’s end Thy image there,
And grow more like it. For art not Thou
The human shadow of the infinite Love
That made and fills the endless universe!
The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown
Eternal Good that rules the summer flower
And all the worlds that people starry space!
—Richard Watson Gilder.
Alternate Reading: Acts 14: 1-28.