Poem September 8, 1928 Issue

The Church of God

FRANCES MARION RALSTON

When sun shone high, a vision came to me—
A great cathedral rose
And spire and dome
Were held aloft to heights unthought
By mortal man.
The aisles were rarest stones,
The walls were carved, hand-wrought;
The great wide spaces underneath the roof
Were studded as with myriad lights,
Yet soft, so that the eye was soothed thereby.
The chancel was of burnished gold,
And on beyond, as in mid-air,
The sentence, "God is Love."

I stood upon the threshold of this church;
And as I gazed
A wondrous thing transpired!
^{See I Peter 2:4, 5, 6.}Each stone, each fragment of that beauteous plan
Appeared a child of God!
Then suddenly I knew myself to be stone
Within its walls.
I looked, and lo! quite near at hand
I saw the face of one
Whom I had shunned because of fancied grievance.
He, too, was there, a stone within the walls
Of this living church of God!

Humbly I bowed my head and whispered:
"Father, forgive me! Had I realized
That we were thus so close,
Working together for Thy kingdom here
Upon the earth,
I would have been more kind,
And not so prone to see a fancied wrong.
Give me the largeness of a heart made pure
So that I shall forget the seeming past,
Knowing myself a jeweled stone
Within the strong walls of Thy church!"

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