JOHN WESLEY
WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWO-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN WESLEY, AT WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT, JUNE, 1903
I
In those clear, piercing, piteous eyes behold
The very soul that over England flamed!
Deep, pure, intense; consuming shame and ill;
Convicting men of sin; making faith live;
And,—this the mightiest miracle of all,—
Creating God again in human hearts.
What courage of the flesh and of the spirit!
How grim of wit, when wit alone might serve!
What wisdom his to know the boundless might
Of banded effort in a world like ours!
How meek, how self-forgetful, courteous, calm!
A silent figure when men idly raged
In murderous anger; calm, too, in the storm,—
Storm of the spirit, strangely imminent,—
When spiritual lightnings struck men down
And brought, by violence, the sense of sin,
And violently oped the gates of peace.
O hear that voice, which rang from dawn to night,
In church and abbey whose most ancient walls
Not for a thousand years such accents knew!
On windy hilltops; by the roaring sea;
'Mid tombs, in market-places, prisons, fields;
'Mid clamor, vile attack, or deep-awed hush,
Wherein celestial visitants drew near
And secret ministered to troubled souls!
