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A BIBLE LOVER'S THANKSGIVING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: God of the book! Its way, its truth, its life?
Last Line: Oh, praise to god for what we may become!
Subject(s): Bible; Holidays; Thanksgiving


God of the Book! Its Way, its Truth, its Life!
The Way that leads through all its fruited realm;
The Truth irradiant from every page;
The Life that holds it young for evermore!
I thank Thee that it was not from the skies
Through riven clouds these heavenly writings fell,
But from the trembling fingers of Thy men,
On paper crumpled with humanity!
Thy Book, the meeting-place of God and men!
Our Book, the meeting-place of men and God!
For Abram's faith and Abram's faithless fear,
For Jacob's vision and his trickery,
For David's odes and David's deadly sin,
Elijah's courage and his cowardice,
Peter confessing and denying too,
And Paul the martyr persecuting Christ --
I thank Thee for the record of it all,
The best in man, the craven worst in man,
Because through all our blest Redeemer shines,
Lifting and loving sinners to Himself!
I thank Thee, wondrous Author, for the gleams
Of paradise, the glorious eloquence,
The prophecies and parables and psalms,
The splendid march of heroes and true kings,
For kindly proverbs and for winged prayers,
The Bible's amplitude and loveliness;
But more for Him, oh, endless more for Him,
Thy Son, who binds these volumes to one Book;
Who walks through all its chapters, hinted here
And there disclosed; whose voice is heard after
In Horeb's thunder, and divinely near
Upon the Horns of Hattin; thanks for Him
Whose purpose wrote the Book ere Moses came,
Whose guidance drew the Book through hungerings
Of groping ages to the Easter dawn;
Whose presence in the Book re-hallows it
Through His unfolding years for evermore.
It mirrors us that it may mirror Him
Beside us. It repeats our waverings
That it may show His constancy. It lives
Because He lives, and longs to live in us.
Oh, highest praise to God for what He is!
Oh, praise to God for what we may become!





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