God’s Muster Roll
When God shall call the muster roll,
As heroes He’ll mark off
Some who ne’er charged at Waterloo,
Or stormed the Malakoff.
Stars, garters, crosses, ribbons fade;
New orders here unfold;
The widow’s mite, St. Martin’s cloak,
The cup of water cold.
The hearts that saved the world by love,
And hourly Calvaries bore,
The mother-martyrs, queenly host,
Are marshalled to the fore.
Earth’s black robed throngs are clad in white;
Their brows a light adorns—
A radiance of diamond,
Crowns of transfigured thorns.
Some humble folk we knew quite well,
But passed with scarce a nod,
Now rank as heaven’s nobility,
The chivalry of God.
—George Alway.
True Religion
To move among the people on the common street; to meet them in the market-place; to live among them not as a saint or monk, but as a brother man with brother men; to serve God not with form or ritual, but in the free impulse of a soul; to bear the burdens of society and relieve its needs; to carry on the multitudinous activities of the city, social, commercial, political, philanthropic, in Christ’s spirit and for His ends; this is the religion of the Son of Man, and the only meetness for heaven which has much reality in it.
—Henry Drummond.
Alternate Reading: Isaiah 35.