We Live By Faith by John Greenleaf Whittier

We live by faith; but faith is not the slave
Of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s;
Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds.
What asks our Father of His children, save
Justice, mercy and humility,
A reasonable service of good deeds,
Pure living, tenderness to human needs,
Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see
The Master’s footprints in our daily ways.

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I would add this:  Biblical faith is not a blind leap.
It is not without reason or against reason.  It is
based upon evidence and many verses show this
to be true.  I believe in God, the Bible as His word,
and Jesus as the Christ risen from the dead because
there is abundant evidence for each.  DL

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Bagley Wood by Lionel Johnson

The night is full of stars, full of magnificence:
Nightingales hold the wood, and fragrance loads the dark.
Behold, what fires august, what lights eternal! Hark,
What passionate music poured in passionate love’s defence!
Breathe but the wafting wind’s nocturnal frankincense!
Only to feel this night’s great heart, only to mark
The splendours and the glooms, brings back the patriarch,
Who on Chaldean wastes found God through reverence.

Could we but live at will upon this perfect height,
Could we but always keep the passion of this peace,
Could we but face unshamed the look of this pure light,
Could we but win earth’s heart, and give desire release:
Then were we all divine, and then were ours by right
These stars, these nightingales, these scents: then shame would cease.

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A Time Naught Else Is Needed by Dennis Lange

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…….A Time Naught Else Is Needed

There is a time and place that God’s commanded
For all His people then together banded
To lift up hearts and songs to Him in praising
From us so small to Him who’s great, amazing.
Then, like a candle lends to sun its burning
Our littleness to Him is thus returning.

At other times, no buildings are we needing
To worship God, His glory so exceeding –
Naught else but halls of towering tall mountains,
Naught else but stormy skies of falling fountains,
Naught else but winter skies with beauty snowing,
Naught else but thankful hearts with love o’er flowing.

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photo by Alfred Borchard at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/o9w3Ica/st.coloman+church

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2014.

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