It Was From Out The Rind Of

Seasoned Life Of Man Preserved And Stored Up In Books.

It Was From Out The Rind Of One Apple Tasted, That The Knowledge Of Good And Evil, As Two Twins Cleaving Together, Leaped Forth Into The World.

Haste Thee, Nymph, And Bring With Thee Jest, And Youthful Jollity, Quips, And Cranks, And Wanton Wiles, Nods, And Becks, And Wreathed Smiles, Such As Hang On Hebe's Cheek, And Love To Live In Dimple Sleek; Sport That Wrinkled Care Derides, And Laughter Holding Both His Sides.

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age! Light, The Prime Work Of God, To Me Is Extinct, And All Her Various Objects Of Delight Annulled, Which Might In Part My Grief Have Eased. Inferior To The Vilest Now Become Of Man Or Worm; The Vilest Here Excel Me, They Creep, Yet See; I, Dark In Light, Exposed To Daily Fraud, Contempt, Abuse And Wrong, Within Doors, Or Without, Still As A Fool, In Power Of Others, Never In My Own; Scarce Half I Seem To Live, Dead More Than Half.

The Saviour Who Flitted Before The Patriarchs Through The Fog Of The Old Dispensation, And Who Spake In Time Past To The Fathers By The Prophets, Articulate But Unseen, Is The Same Saviour Who, On The Open Heights Of The Gospel, And In The Abundant Daylight Of This New Testament, Speaks To Us. Still All Along It Is The Same Jesus, And That Bible Is From Beginning To End All Of It, The Word Of Christ.