Biblical Essays
LOSS OF FAITH
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Upon the white sea sand, there sat a pilgrim band,
Telling the losses which their lives had known,
While evening waned away, from breezy cliff and bay,
And the strong tides went out with weary moan.
One spake with quivering lip, of a fair freighted ship,
With all his household to the deep gone down.
But one had wilder woe, for a fair face long ago,
Lost in the darker depths of a great town.
There were some who mourned their youth, with a most loving truth,
For its brave hopes and memories ever green;
And one upon the West, turned an eye that would not rest,
For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.
Some talked of vanished gold, some of proud honors told,
Some spoke of friends that were their trust no more;
And one of a green grave, beside a foreign wave,
That made him sit so lonely on the shore.
But when their tales were done, there spake among them one,
A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free:
“Sad losses have ye met, but mine is heavier yet,
For a believing heart hath gone from me.”
“Alas!” these pilgrims said, “for the living and the dead,
For fortunes cruelty, for love’s sure cross,
For the wreck of land and sea, but however it came to thee –
Thine, stranger, is life’s last and heaviest loss.”
(Dr. William Harrison)
