THE SACRAMENT OF PAIN by WILLIAM ARTHUR DUNKERLEY

Pain is God's husbandman that turns the clods
Of our sufficiency to furrows for His seed.
So, with calm courage suffer every pain
For the soul-quick'ning it doth then contain.

Earth does not cry aloud her misery
When the keen share plows through her quivering breast,
Nor does complain, but in sure silence waits
The seed, the shoot, the gracious rustling grain,
And bears unmoved the ill that makes for gain.

Pain purges out the gathered dross of life,
And leaves the spirit bare of earth's additaments, --
Bare to the hand of God -- and God is love.

Pain wears away our pride of strength
And undue sense of self,
Saps all our powers, voids our securities,
And cast us helpless in the lap of God,
As new-born babes upon their mothers' knees.

Through pains untellable, the Man Divine
Revealed to man the Father's boundless love.
So, when you suffer, clasp His wounded hand,
Creep close and lay your weary head
Upon His breast, and there, close-pressed,
Unite your pains with His, and you shall feel
The heart that broke for you still beating strong
The never-dying love of God for all mankind.

Through suffering we come to closest touch with Him
Who suffered once for man the final woe,
And suffers still, and will till knowledge grow.
But, by the pangs that for mankind He bore,
He showed The Way, and, going on before,
He made of Death the Opener of Life's Door.

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