THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2296, 15 May 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

Said Christ .our Lord, " I will go and see How the men, my brethren, believe in ■•-me." He passed not again through the gate of birth, But made himself known to the children of earth.

Then said tho chief priests, and rulers and kings, "Behold, now, tho giver of all good things; Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state Him who alone ia mighty and groat."

With carpets of gold the ground the; spread Wherever the Son of Man should tread And in palace chambers lofty and rare They lodged him and served him wit kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him, And iu church and palace and judgment hall He saw his image high over all.

But still, wherevor his steps they led, The lord in Borrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundationstones The Son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church and palace and judgmenthall He marked great fissures that rent tho wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the,,living foundation heaved and sighed.

"Have yo founded your thrones and alters, then,

On the bodies and souls.of living men ? And think ye that building shall euduro Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

" With gates of silver and hars of gold Yo have fenced my sheep from my

' Father's fold ; I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years

" O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt; We built but as our father's built, Behold thino images—how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land,

" Our task is hard—with sword and flame To hold the earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of Bteel to keep Still, as thou lofteat them, thy sheep."

Then Christ sought out an artizan— A low-browed, stunted haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from hor faintly want and sin.

These set he in the midst of them, And, as thoy drew back their garment-hem For fear of defilement, " Lo here," said he "The images ye have made of me I" James Russell Lowell.