The Kingdom of Truth

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?—John 18:37-38.

1. Jesus was on trial for His life on a charge of sedition in claiming to be a king. The charge was expressed in the question, “Art thou a king then?” His answer to this charge was a puzzle to His judge. His kingdom was not of this world, and yet it was to be supreme and universal. Pilate could understand an authority which was enforced by Roman legions, and maintained by Roman bribes, but could not comprehend his prisoner when He rested His claims simply upon the truth to which He was to bear witness. “ ‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” The severe assurance of the prisoner brings into bold relief the frivolous scepticism of the judge. It would almost seem that in the two were represented the extremes of modern thought and character.

2. They were standing face to face in the splendid hall of a palace in Jerusalem. It was adorned with vessels of gold and silver: the floor was of rich mosaic, the columns were of many-coloured marble. The speaker was a Roman Governor, seated on his tribunal in all his pomp. On either side were the Roman soldiers, in full armour, with spear and shield. Behind his gilded chair stood the lictors with their fasces. Politically, he represented the mightiest power on all the earth—the power of Imperial Rome. Personally, he wielded an almost irresponsible despotism. Before him, worn and wasted, His visage marred more than any man—the agony of long hours of struggle, and torment, and sleeplessness in His eyes, the marks of blows and insult on His face—stood a Jewish prisoner. His hands were bound behind His back; His garb was the humble dress of a Galilean peasant. The burning sunlight of an early Syrian spring streamed through the lattices, and the deep silence which hangs over an Eastern city at early dawn would ordinarily have been broken only by the plashing of fountains in the green spaces of the garden, or by the cooing of innumerable doves which sunned their white bosoms over the marble colonnades. It was broken now by far other sounds. The voices of the two speakers were almost drowned by the savage yells of a Jewish mob—all raging against that toil-worn prisoner, all demanding that the Roman Governor should shed His blood.

On the north-east of the Temple in Jerusalem, in menacing attitude, stood the great Herodian Citadel called, after Mark Antony, Turris Antonia. The perpendicular sides of the hill on which this palatial fortress was reared were faced with polished marble so as to defy all attempts to scale its walls. On the platform immediately above this impregnable rampart was planted the square-built Citadel itself. At each angle of it there shot up a tower, the one to the south side being conspicuous by a turret from which the Roman garrison, much to the annoyance of the priests, could command an unbroken view of the interior of the Holy Temple. To render this marble camp an abode suitable for the Roman Governor in times of danger, Herod had built, on a lower platform hewn out of the living rock, a sumptuous residence, embodying Grecian taste and Oriental luxury. The praetorium, of which the Gospel speaks, was approached on its western side through an open court or forum, leading to a noble Roman archway flanked by two others on a smaller scale. This triple archway opened into an area paved with red flagstones, called by Greeks, Lithostrotos, and by Jews, Gabbatha. Here at right angles with the archway stood the white marble Tribune or Bema from which the Governor was wont to administer justice. Beyond it sprang a grand staircase sloping up to the balcony or loggia sweeping to the right and left of the Governor’s hall. From this point Pilate probably surveyed the accusers of Jesus.1 [Note: B. Vaughan, Society, Sin and the Saviour, 89.]

I

The Kingdom of Truth

Truth is a kingdom. It is the kingdom of the Spirit. Its Divine authority was distinctly enunciated by Jesus in reply to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world,” therefore its sway is inevitable, its passage cannot be prevented. Men may try to distort its outlines, but its essential power they cannot control. It does not change with the political boundaries or military dominance of earth’s kingdoms. “If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.” Kings cannot prevent its growth. Your Cæsar shall be forgotten, and his throne overturned—while My Kingdom shall be spreading over the world and absorbing all other kingdoms. Priests cannot defile it, however much they may seek to interpret truth for their own ends. When the ecclesiastics brought Jesus to Pilate, they would not enter into the palace themselves, “lest they should be defiled”—and the Passover was yet to be eaten. It was an admission from false ceremonialism of its own weakness. The living truth had gone out of their system; they had only the outward forms to rely upon, and they did not dare relinquish one of these, for they had no other authority.

The answer Christ gave to Pilate suggests the best reply to the question, “What did Christ mean by the Kingdom of God.” He was king, He said, in the kingdom of the truth, meaning thereby not a mere dogma, but the truth of God and the truth of man. The kind of power which He here claims is spiritual power, and that is the greatest that can be swayed. For it is spiritual power—true or false—that determines history, shapes the character of society, directs the tendencies of life, the movements of the world. There are uncrowned kings who have swayed the destinies of mankind as no leaders of armies have been able to sway them. There have been poets and teachers who have inspired enthusiasms and kindled hopes that have moved the world, for they have reigned over the domain of human thought and so determined the actions of mankind. There have been kings on other thrones than those of State who have been the real monarchs of humanity,—Gutenberg with his printing-press, Bacon with his inductive method, Isaac Newton, James Watt. What a wide domain of conquest the very mention of these names suggests. May we not say with truth that if we are to find the influences which have given power to any of the great epochs of the world, we must look not to the brute force which was called into exercise, but to the ideas which gave nerve to the arms that wielded the force? Wherein, for example, lay the power of the armies of revolutionary France? Not surely in the number of her soldiers or in the genius of her commanders alone. These countless battalions marched with songs of joy against a world in arms because every heart there was stirred with the sense of a grand cause. It was the charmed words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity that excited their enthusiasm into a fierce world-conquering fanaticism. So is it that the true kingdoms which govern men are not those which strike the eye. They do not excite observation. They are the kingdoms of human conviction, thought, aspiration, passion. It is in the sphere of ideas, in the domain of the affections, in the faiths, the hopes, the loves which sway humanity, that we discover the real forces of the world. And so it was that Christ touched the true fountain of all power when He refused to use the forces which the world imagines omnipotent, when He left Cæsar on the throne and Pilate in the praetorium, and said, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight but my kingdom is not from hence. For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

1. The kingdom of truth is wide in extent.—The truth to which Christ bore witness at the first was the truth which concerned His person, and His claims to the love and obedience of men. On the cross He bore witness to the love of God for sinning man. By rising from the dead, and ascending to His Father, He testified that He was indeed the Son of God. By His present spirit He has witnessed ever since for the living God as against the godlessness and self-worship to which man is prone. To the truth which enforces the duties of men, Christ also bore witness, first by His spotless and inspiring life, by His penetrating and faithful words, and then by the long succession of obedient disciples who have imitated the one and exemplified the other.

There is, however, truth of other descriptions than the truth which we call religious and ethical. There is the truth of science, which is expanded every year into grander proportions; the truth of letters, which is more and more abundant and instructive; and the truth of the imagination, which is more and more varied and inspiring. Has Christ any testimony to give concerning these kinds of truth? Does Christ hold any relations to Science, Letters, or Art? And, if so, what are these relations? We believe that they are many and important. We also hold that the spirit of earnest discipleship to Christ always favours, and often inspires, the highest achievements in every one of these forms of truth. We hold not only that Christianity satisfies the wants of which the scholar is conscious as a man, but that it is equally efficient and equally essential in stimulating and guiding him rightly as a scholar. In other words, we contend that allegiance to Christ is a favouring, and in one sense an essential, condition of the best human culture and education.

I notice that among all the new buildings which cover your once wild hills, churches and schools are mixed in due, that is to say, in large proportion, with your mills and mansions; and I notice also that the churches and schools are almost always Gothic, and the mansions and mills are never Gothic. May I ask the meaning of this? for, remember, it is peculiarly a modern phenomenon. When Gothic was invented, houses were Gothic as well as churches; and when the Italian style superseded the Gothic, churches were Italian as well as houses. If there is a Gothic spire to the Cathedral of Antwerp, there is a Gothic belfry to the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels; if Inigo Jones builds an Italian Whitehall, Sir Christopher Wren builds an Italian St. Paul’s. But now you live under one school of architecture, and worship under another. What do you mean by doing this? Am I to understand that you are thinking of changing your architecture back to Gothic: and that you treat your churches experimentally, because it does not matter what mistakes you make in a church? Or am I to understand that you consider Gothic a pre-eminently sacred and beautiful mode of building, which you think, like the fine frankincense, should be mixed for the tabernacle only, and reserved for your religious services? For if this be the feeling, though it may seem at first as if it were graceful and reverent, at the root of the matter, it signifies neither more nor less than that you have separated your religion from your life.1 [Note: Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olives (Works, xviii. 440).]

2. It is a conquering kingdom.—“Magna est Veritas et praevalet.” Like the magnificent palace of the Incas of Cuzco, the ancient imperial city of Peru, whose ponderous stones were united by seams of melted gold, the whole social fabric is cemented by this pure and durable element, without which the noble structure would soon totter to its fall. Falsehood makes war with God’s grandest attribute, as manifested in heaven and earth, but this attribute must ultimately triumph to vindicate the glory of His reign.

Truth, crush’d to earth, shall rise again,

The eternal years of God are hers:

While Error, wounded, writhes in pain,

And dies amid his worshippers.

Many moral victories that we want to see won in the world can be won only when we are gone; but let us make our contribution, and others will carry on the struggle. Captain Urquhart, dying in the Battle of Atbara, in the Soudan, said to the men who were attending him, “Never mind me, lads, go on!” Inspired with the worth of the cause and the importance of his army’s victory, he could forget his pain and give up his life, and tell the others to go on. We have a more important battle to fight—we must carry on the war of God against all wrong—and every soldier that falls must inspire the others to go on.1 [Note: T. R. Williams, God’s Open Door, 56.]

3. Its progress is secured by sacrifice.—Christ’s throne is a Cross. The throne of this king was not like that of Solomon, with its golden lions and ivory steps; not like the jewelled throne of Byzantium, or the peacock throne of the Moguls. It was the throne of sorrow; it was the throne of awful self-sacrifice. “By this conquer” gleamed around that Cross in the vision of Constantine; and it was before this implement of a slave’s shame and a murderer’s punishment, that the eagles of ancient, the dragons of later Rome gave way. It was before this Cross, woven on the Labarum, that the Pagan armies of Maxentius were driven into the panic which Raphael has so grandly pictured in his Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

When upon one occasion the Emperor Justinian was about to surrender to the clamorous claims and the harsh and violent demands of the mob, his wife Theodora is represented to have said to him that it was better to meet and go down to death as the avowed ruler of all than purchase life for a little while by yielding to the unworthy exactions of the unrighteous few; and empire, she tells him, “is the best winding-sheet.” Empire, universal empire, throughout all the world, throughout all the ages, is the winding-sheet of Jesus Christ. Victorious in the wilderness, victorious in Gethsemane, before that worldly-minded Governor in the judgment hall, victorious on the Cross, because His eye looked not upon the unworthy demands of the immediate occasion, but upon the everlasting years, upon all future times, and wrapped around in the winding-sheet of empire does He die.1 [Note: D. H. Greer, From Things to God, 36.]

II

The King of Truth

1. Jesus claimed Kingship.—Pilate asked our Lord plainly, “Art thou a King?” Jesus answered, “Thou sayest it,” an expression which in Oriental language was equivalent to an affirmative, “Yes, I am what thou sayest.” But Christ took no place or rank among the acknowledged world-kings. All forms of world-dominion He refused. Throughout His life He repressed every attempt to gain for Him an earthly royalty, even as at the beginning of His ministry He repelled the devil’s offer of the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them. The only royal robe He ever wore was the scarlet robe of mockery and insult; the only crown that ever encircled His brow was the crown of suffering and plaited thorns; the only sceptre He ever bore was the reed with which cruel hands smote Him. This does not seem kingly; yet, could we but understand and appreciate it aright, there is a grandeur and moral splendour about it such as never circled round the marble throne, and gorgeous draperies, and jewelled crowns of any mere world-king. World-kings are kings of wealth, and genius, and lands, and people, and armies. The Christ-King, crowned with thorns, is yet the King of the suffering, King of the patient, King of the spiritual, King of souls, King of the eternal, King of truth.

2. Jesus is the embodiment of truth.—Milton says of truth: “Truth indeed came once into the world with her Divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on.” Milton looks upon truth as one who comes with Christ into the world. Would it not be better to say that Christ Himself is the Embodiment of truth, for He says, “I am the truth”? Christ’s own testimony is proof of this, for three times in the Gospel according to St. John He speaks of Himself as the True One. He is the True Vine for reproduction (John 15:1), in contrast to Israel, who proved to be the false vine (Jeremiah 2:21). He is the True Bread for satisfaction (John 6:32), in contrast to the manna in the wilderness, which only met the present necessity of the people; and He is the True Light for illumination (John 1:9), in contrast to the false wrecker-lights of men.

3. Jesus bore witness to the truth.—This was the purpose of His mission. “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” He is now before Pilate and nearing the close of His earthly life. The unity of His life, we see as we study it, is the following out to the minutest detail of the principle which He says has been and is His controlling purpose—to testify to the truth. In the events which are to follow, Jesus is true to the conception of His mission, even though His persistence in bearing witness to the truth leads Him to the ignominious death upon the cross. Fidelity to His mission He carried to the extent of yielding up His own life rather than cease to bear witness to the truth.

(1) He bore witness by His character.—It is nothing more than a simple truism to say that, apart from the metaphysics of His Person, which opens a wide field for speculative controversy, Jesus is the supreme revealer of God. The character of the invisible and omnipresent Deity, whom no eye can fully see, and no life can adequately express, who is without an equal in wisdom and power and goodness, is focused, as it were, in the personality of Jesus. That which overwhelms us by its mystery and vastness, as we look into the universe around us—of which we are a part—is brought within the range of our vision, and the reach of our love, by Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is there revelation in its loftiest compass, and in its most unveiled expression, but there is something special and unique in the form of it.

(2) He bore witness by His Ministry and Passion.—There are groups of pines on the crag-ledges of Umbria which strike the eye against the clear still sky when the autumn night is coming. Each tree alone is weird, it is gnarled and twisted, bared by the tempest, or distorted and tortured by the pitiless wind; but the group they form together has nothing but dignity, the dignity of support and endurance in a lonely world. So it is essential life, together with unparalleled pain leading up to a voluntary and a dreadful death, that gives to the witness of the Passion the emphasis of extent and intensity.

When in the fifth century the Byzantine Empire was sinking into the decrepitude of a merely nominal Christianity, St. Chrysostom saw some converted Goths, with their clear blue eyes and yellow hair, kneeling to worship in one of the Basilicas of Constantinople, and he prophesied that that bold and hardy race should snatch the torch of truth from the more faithless and more feeble hands. They had laid down their barbarism, they had broken their idols at the feet of Him whom they called “The White Christ.” Their own fierce chieftains they chose from the boldest soldiers, and lifted them upon their shields, amid shouts of warriors and clash of swords; but they bowed before the royalty of a crucified Redeemer. Of their race in part are we. And if we fail in our allegiance to Christ, He will never lack other soldiers and other servants; for though the heart of men be full of evil, though for a time they may say, “We will not have this man to reign over us,” yet when the last appeal shall come to them, whether they will have Christ for a king, at last they will fall upon their knees in agonies of penitence, and in dust and ashes, with tears and with misereres, with beaten breasts, with uplifted hands, they will sigh back their answer—“Christ is King!”1 [Note: F. W. Farrar, True Religion, 200.]

III

Allegiance to the Truth

1. Jesus before Pilate is the Truth making its appeal and waiting for judgment.

(1) Pilate was indifferent to the truth.—It was said of a distinguished American jurist that he finally retired from the bench because he could not there escape making decisions. Pilate was this kind of man. The French statesman, Talleyrand, writing in his old age of the qualities of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, said: “He ought to be gifted with a kind of instinct which prevents him from committing himself.” Pilate was a good example of the school of Talleyrand. Here was this young enthusiast who had so stirred the people by the kingly declaration of His mission, “To this end was I born, that I should bear witness unto the truth”; and Pilate, the consistent neutral, looked down on Him with serious pity and answered, “Ah, my young friend, what is this illusion for which you want to die? Die for it, then, if you will! I find no fault in you; I wash my hands of blame. You bring your fate upon yourself.” And so dismissing this case of an alien, he retired into his palace, well content with himself because he had been neither ensnared by the enthusiasm of the reformer nor misled by the bigotry of the mob.

(2) Pilate turned away from the truth.—The Prisoner before him had accepted the title of a king. He based His claim to this title on the fact that He had come to bear witness to the truth. He declared that those who were themselves of the truth would acknowledge His claim; they were His rightful subjects; they were the enfranchised citizens of His Kingdom. Strange language this in the ears of a cynical, worldly sceptic, to whose eyes the most attractive type of humanity was a judicious admixture of force and fraud. “Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out.” The altercation could be carried no further. Was not human life itself one great query, without an answer? What was truth, what else, except that which each man thought? Truth! This helpless Prisoner claimed to be a king, and He appealed, forsooth, to His truthfulness as the credential of His sovereign rights. Was ever any claim more contradictory of all human experience, more palpably absurd than this? Truth! When had truth anything to do with founding a kingdom? The mighty engine of imperial power, the iron sceptre which ruled the world, whence came it? Certainly it owed nothing to truth. Had not Augustus established his sovereignty by an unscrupulous employment of force, and maintained it by an astute use of artifice? And his successor, the present occupant of the imperial throne, was he not an arch dissembler, the darkest of all dark enigmas? The name of Tiberius was a by-word for impenetrable disguise. Truth might do well enough for fools and enthusiasts, for simple men; but for rulers, for diplomatists, for men of the world, it was the wildest of all wild dreams. Truth! What was truth? He had lived too long in the world to trust any such hollow pretensions.

(3) Pilate was surprised and judged by the truth.—He found himself unexpectedly confronted by the truth, and he could not recognise it. His whole life long he had tampered with truth, he had despised truth, he had despaired of truth. Truth was the last thing that He had set before him as the aim of his life. He had thought much of policy, of artifice, of fraud, of force; but for truth in any of its manifold forms he had cared just nothing at all. And his sin had worked out its own retribution. Not truth only, but the Very Truth itself, Truth Incarnate stood before him in human form, and he was blind to it. He scorned it, he played with it, he thrust it aside, he condemned and he crucified it. “Suffered under Pontius Pilate” is the legend of eternal infamy with which history has branded his name.

2. Those who are in sympathy with the truth will pay it homage. A very good illustration of this will be found in the methods of scientific inquiry as it is now prosecuted. For the man of science seeks nothing in his researches into nature but Bimply to discover the truth. For this purpose he toils, working hard by day, and watching long by night, if that should be needful. He spares no pains to verify his facts and observations. He multiplies experiments to rectify possible errors. If these show that he was before on a wrong track, he gives it up, and follows the line suggested by the later results of his inquiries; for his object is not to establish a foregone conclusion, but simply to find out the truth. That truth, when he finds it, may startle many folk, may unsettle former opinions, may seriously affect many interests and recognized authorities. He cannot help that. It is his business simply to find what the facts are and what they plainly teach; and when he has done that he says: “There is the truth, and that is the way by which I reached it, step by step. As for all else, I have nothing to do with it whatever. A lie has no vested interests that I can respect: nor will any authority make it anything but a lie. Truth, too, is always, in the long run, wholesome and best for all. And if this be true it is at your peril that you reject it. Be sure that, in so doing, you shall be the losers.” Thus, in his own province, he seeks the truth diligently and fearlessly; and one of the noblest results of his researches is the state of mind which he thus helps to produce, with its loyalty and courage and persistent love of truth. Out of his own province, indeed, he is often very much like other men, hasty, not over careful about his facts, and jumping to ill-considered conclusions. But in prosecuting his proper work, his methods and his spirit afford a good illustration of what it is to be sincerely “of the truth.”

“I say,” broke in one of the boys, who was just emerging from the tenderfoot stage, “o’ course that’s in the Bible, ain’t it?”

The Pilot assented.

“Well, how do you know it’s true?”

The Pilot was proceeding to elaborate his argument when Bill cut in somewhat more abruptly than was his wont.

“Look here, young feller!” Bill’s voice was in the tone of command. The man looked as he was bid. “How do you know anything’s true? How do you know the Pilot here’s true when he speaks? Can’t you tell by the feel? You know by the sound of his voice, don’t you?”1 [Note: Ralph Connor, The Sky Pilot, ch. xxi.]

(1) Sometimes the truth comes to us at once. It dawns upon us, shines on us, without any conscious effort of our own or immediate seeking on our part:

Think ye ’mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

This is intuition: but it does not come miraculously; there has been a long preparation for it in the race and often also in the individual. There are other truths that have to be long and earnestly sought for, in the quest of which all our intellectual powers must be employed, and the endeavour strenuously made to free the mind from all personal bias and unwillingness to believe. We often go without the truth because we are too indolent or indifferent to seek it earnestly, or because we are prejudiced against it and unwilling to receive it. There is certainly a moral element involved in the search for and the reception of truth. We have ears that hear not and eyes that see not. Truth reveals itself to those who love it; it comes to those who will give it a home.

(2) And sometimes we reach it gradually. In ascending the mountains of Switzerland, the climber begins his journey by a disappointing contradiction. He descends from some sheltering châlet, by the light of the waning moon; he has to go over a broken path, and with a stealthy step; there are before him real tracts of trouble; the dim light alters proportions, and deceives as to distance, and so, plunging onwards, he hurts his feet. Onward he goes; he must cross the interspaces of gloom, where the shadows fall in blackness on the bases of the mountains, thick, with no shading of pity, but dusky and cruel as the hangings of Death. Onward, onward, the grasp of darkness is at last relaxing; the sky is clearer; there is a promise of the coming day; he struggles higher; around him are rising innumerable peaks, sheathed in the frost-sheets of diamond, and with the glint of the mingling glitter of the moonlight and the morning. It is an ice-world of splendour,—mountaineering made glorious,—for the light is increasing, there is a feeling of freshness, a sense of security, an exhilaration of joy; the dimness is dying, the severest of the struggle is distanced, he feels, and, with a sense of triumph, he has his feet on the track of Dawn.

(3) But our eye must always be single. The seeker after truth must fulfil one condition: he must lead a true life, a life of moral rectitude at least. A false life can never come to the truth, for truth is revealed only to truth. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life,” was advice founded on a melancholy experience. “Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness,” said one who came through the fiery ordeal not scathless, and is now enjoying the peace he hardly found on earth,—“blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast to those venerable landmarks of morality. Thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within and without, when his teachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear bright day.”

We may call to mind the experience of Columbus, when he found himself entangled in the Sargasso Sea in the midst of the ocean, to the westward of the Canary Islands. As far as eye could see the surface was thickly covered with weed, through which it seemed hopeless to seek to penetrate. To his sailors the attempt seemed even impious; the Almighty had shown His anger at their endeavour to peer into His secrets. Columbus himself feared that these weeds might indicate the proximity of dangerous rocks on which his vessel might be wrecked. But, strong in his faith in an undiscovered land, he steered right onward, carefully sounding from time to time, till in a few days they got clear of the weeds, out again into the free ocean, and in due time reached the western shore he was seeking. So it ever is in the search for truth, if we are in earnest and will but persevere, with our minds open to such guidance, Divine and human, as we can find, carefully taking soundings as we proceed, but never losing faith in the reality and attainability of truth. We shall not indeed reach all truth, or even the whole truth on any particular subject; but we shall find what we need for mental rest and true practical life.1 [Note: W. L. Walker, The True Christ, 12.]

In the bitter waves of woe,

Beaten and tossed about

By the sullen winds that blow

From the desolate shores of doubt,—

When the anchors that faith had cast

Are dragging in the gale,

I am quietly holding fast

To the things that cannot fail:

I know that right is right;

That it is not good to lie;

That love is better than spite,

And a neighbour than a spy;

I know that passion needs

The leash of a sober mind;

I know that generous deeds

Some sure reward will find;

That the rulers must obey;

That the givers shall increase;

That Duty lights the way

For the beautiful feet of Peace;—

In the darkest night of the year,

When the stars have all gone out,

That courage is better than fear,

That faith is truer than doubt;

And fierce though the fiends may fight,

And long though the angels hide,

I know that Truth and Right

Have the universe on their side;

And that somewhere, beyond the stars,

Is a Love that is better than fate;

When the night unlocks her bars

I shall see Him, and I will wait.1 [Note: Washington Gladden.]

The Kingdom of Truth

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