MY TRUST

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2305, 18 December 1889, Page 2

MY TRUST

A picture memory beings to me ; X look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee. I feel her gentle hand restrain My selfish moods, and know again A child's blind sense of wrong and pain. But wiser now, a man grey grown, My childhood's needs are better known, My mother's chastening love I own. Grey grown, but m our Father's sight A child still groping for the light To read His works and ways aright. I wait, m His good time to see That, as my mother dealt with me, So with His children dealeth He. I bow myself beneath His hand ; The pain itself was wisely planned I feel, and partly understand. The joy that comes m sorrow's guise, The sweet pains of self-sacrifice, I would not have them otherwise. And what were life and death, if sin Knew not the dead rebuke within, The pang of merciful discipline ? Not with thy proud despair of old, Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould ! Pleasure and pain alike I hold. I Fuffer with no vain pretence Of triumph over flesh and sense, . Yet trust the grievous providence. How dark soe'er it seems may tendj By ways I cannot comprehend, To some unguessed benignant end. That every loss and lapse may gain The clear-aired heights by steps of pain, And never cross isborne m vain. John GaRBNWJAr Whitik?*