rds confessed,
Wrung from a proud unflinching breast
By hours of dull ignoble pain,
Your whole life's fight was fought in vain:
Would I could win and keep and feel
That heart of love, that spirit of steel.

I would not to Thy bosom fly
To slink off till the storms go by.
If you are like the man you were
You'ld turn with scorn from such a prayer,
Unless from some poor workhouse crone,
Too toil-worn to do aught but moan.
Flog me and spur me, set me straight
At some vile job I fear and hate:
Some sickening round of long endeavour,
No light, no rest, no outlet ever:
All at a pace that must not slack,
Tho' heart would burst and sinews crack:
Fog in one's eyes, the brain a-swim,
A weight like lead in every limb,
And a raw pit that hurts like hell
Where once the light breath rose and fell:
Do you but keep me, hope or none,
Cheery and staunch till all is done,
And, at the last gasp, quick to lend
One effort more to serve a friend.

And when--for so I sometimes dream--
I've swum the dark, the silent stream,
So cold, it takes the breath away,
That parts the dead world from the day,
And see upon the further strand
The lazy, listless angels stand,
And with their frank and fearless eyes
The comrades whom I most did prize:
Then, clean, unburdened, careless, cool,
I'll saunter up from that grim pool,
And join my friends: then you'll come by,
The Captain of our Company:
Call me out, look me up and down,
And pass me through without a frown,
With half a smile, but never a word--
And so I shall have met my Lord.

[5] _Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary_, p. 106. Hodder &
Stoughton.

XX

There is also the objection that the view implied in the preceding pages
leaves out or passes over too lightly our need as sinners in the sight of
God all Holy. Is not our need for forgiveness to impel us towards God? Is
not our need--our need in anxiety, our need in guiltiness--to be a motive
in our religion?

Yes, a motive, but not the motive. It is a question of order. What must
come first is not our need, whether as anxious or guilty, but God's need,
or else our religion will be at the level of natural religion and below
the Christian level. It is because men are poor towards God and think
coldly and ungenerously of Him that they 'are not worrying