O Science, reaching backward through the distance, Most earnest child of God, Exposing all the secrets of existence, With thy divining rod, I bid thee speed up to the heights supernal, Clear thinker, ne’er sufficed; Go seek and bind the laws and truths eternal, But leave me Christ.
Upon the vanity of pious sages Let in the light of day; Break down the superstitions of all ages— Thrust bigotry away; Stride on, and bid all stubborn foes defiance, Let Truth and Reason reign: But I beseech thee, O Immortal Science, Let Christ remain.
What canst thou give to help me bear my crosses, In place of Him, my Lord? And what to recompense for all my losses, And bring me sweet reward? _Thou_ couldst not with thy clear, cold eyes of reason, Thou couldst not comfort me Like One who passed through that tear-blotted season In sad Gethsemane!
Through all the weary, wearing hour of sorrow, What word that thou hast said Would make me strong to wait for some to-morrow When I should find my dead? When I am weak, and desolate, and lonely— And prone to follow wrong? Not thou, O Science—Christ, my Saviour, only Can make me strong.
Thou art so cold, so lofty, and so distant, Though great my need might be, No prayer, however constant and persistent, Could bring thee down to me. Christ stands so near, to help me through each hour, To guide me day by day O Science, sweeping all before thy power— Leave Christ, I pray!
The mighty conflict, which we call existence, Doth wear upon the body and the soul, Our vital forces wasted in resistance, So much there is to conquer and control.
The rock which meets the billows with defiance, Undaunted and unshaken day by day, In spite of its unyielding self-reliance, Is by the warfare surely worn away.
And there are depths and heights of strong emotions That surge at times within the human breast, More fierce than all the tides of all the oceans Which sweep on ever in divine unrest.
I sometimes think the rock worn with adventures, And sad with thoughts of conflicts yet to be, Must envy the frail reed which no one censures, When, overcome, ’tis swallowed by the sea.
This life is all resistance and repression. Dear God, if in that other world unseen, Not rest we find, but new life and progression, Grant us a respite in the grave between.