THE Quaker of the olden time! <br />How calm and firm and true, <br />Unspotted by its wrong and crime, <br />He walked the dark earth through. <br />The lust of power, the love of gain, <br />The thousand lures of sin <br />Around him, had no power to stain <br />The purity within. <br />With that deep insight which detects <br />All great things in the small, <br />And knows how each man's life affects <br />The spiritual life of all, <br />He walked by faith and not by sight, <br />By love and not by law; <br />The presence of the wrong or right <br />He rather felt than saw. <br />He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, <br />That nothing stands alone, <br />That whoso gives the motive, makes <br />His brother's sin his own. <br />And, pausing not for doubtful choice <br />Of evils great or small, <br />He listened to that inward voice <br />Which called away from all. <br />O Spirit of that early day, <br />So pure and strong and true, <br />Be with us in the narrow way <br />Our faithful fathers knew. <br />Give strength the evil to forsake, <br />The cross of Truth to bear, <br />And love and reverent fear to make <br />Our daily lives a prayer!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-quaker-of-the-olden-time/
