"Come ye yourselves into a desert place and rest
awhile; for there were many coming and going, so that
they had no time so much as to eat."
'MID the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion,
Its jarring discords and poor vanity,
Breathing like music over troubled waters,
What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee?
It is a stranger,—not of earth or earthly;
By the serene, deep fulness of that eye,—
By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly,—
It is thy Saviour as he passeth by.
"Come, come," he saith, "O soul oppressed and weary,
Come to the shadows of my desert rest,
Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords,
And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast.
"Art thou bewildered by contesting voices,—
Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife?
Come, leave it all, and seek that solitude
Where thou shalt learn of me a purer life.
"When far behind the world's great tumult dieth,
Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar;
But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream,
Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er.
"There shalt thou learn the secret of a power,
Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living;
To overcome by love, to live by prayer,
To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving."