ght a child to God is born,
And all is brought again that ere was lost or lorn.

Could but thy soul, O man, become a silent night
God would be born in thee and set all things aright.

Ye know God but as Lord, hence Lord his name with ye,
I feel him but as love, and Love his name with me.

Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,
If he's not born in thee thy soul is all forlorn.

The cross on Golgotha will never save thy soul,
The cross in thine own heart alone can make thee whole.

Christ rose not from the dead, Christ still is in the grave
If thou for whom he died art still of sin the slave.

In all eternity no tone can be so sweet
As where man's heart with God in unison doth beat.

Whate'er thou lovest, man, that, too, become thou must;
God, if thou lovest God, dust, if thou lovest dust.

Ah, would thy heart but be a manger for the birth,
God would once more become a child on earth.

Immeasurable is the highest; who but knows it?
And yet a human heart can perfectly enclose it.

--Johannes Scheffler.

THE LARGER VIEW

In buds upon some Aaron's rod
The childlike ancient saw his God;
Less credulous, more believing, we
Read in the grass--Divinity.

From Horeb's bush the Presence spoke
To earlier faiths and simpler folk;
But now each bush that sweeps our fence
Flames with the Awful Immanence!

To old Zacchaeus in his tree
What mattered leaves and botany?
His sycamore was but a seat
Whence he could watch that hallowed street.

But now to us each elm and pine
Is vibrant with the Voice divine,
Not only from but in the bough
Our larger creed beholds him now.

To the true faith, bark, sap, and stem
Are wonderful as Bethlehem;
No hill nor brook nor field nor herd
But mangers the Incarnate Word!

Far be it from our lips to cast
Contempt upon the holy past--
Whate'er the Finger writes we scan
In manger, prophecy, or man.

Again we touch the healing hem
In Nazareth or Jerusalem;
We trace again those faultless years;
The cross commands our wondering tears.

Yet if to us the Spirit writes
On Morning's manuscript and Night's,
In gospels of the growing grain,
Epistles of the pond and plain,

In stars, in atoms, as they roll,
Each tireless round its occult pole,
In win