CHRIST BETRAYED.
Eighteen hundred years agoneWas that deed of darkness done—Was that sacred, thorn-crowned headTo a shameful death betrayed,And Iscariot’s traitor nameBlazoned in eternal shame.Thou, disciple of our time,Follower of the faith sublime,Who with high and holy scornOf that traitorous deed dost burn,Though the years may never moreTo our earth that form restoreThe Christ-Spirit ever lives—Ever in thy heart he strives.When pale Misery mutely calls;When thy tempted brother falls;When thy gentle words may chainHate, and Anger, and Disdain,Or thy loving smile impart Courage to some sinking heart;When within thy troubled breastGood and evil thoughts contest;Though unconscious thou may’st be,The Christ-Spirit strives with thee. When he trod the Holy Land,With his small disciple band,And the fated hour had comeFor that august martyrdom—When the man, the human love,And the God within him strove—As in Gethsemane he wept,They, the faithless watchers, slept:While for them he wept and prayed,One denied and one betrayed! If to-day thou turn’st asideIn thy luxury and pride,Wrapped within thyself and blindTo the sorrows of thy kind,Thou a faithless watch dost keep—Thou art one of those who sleep:Or, if waking thou dost seeNothing of DivinityIn our fallen, struggling race;If in them thou seest no traceOf a glory dimmed, not gone, Of a Future to be won—Of a Future, hopeful, high—Thou, like Peter, dost deny:But if, seeing, thou believest,If the Evangel thou receivest,Yet, if thou art bound to Sin,False to the Ideal within,Slave of Ease or slave of Gold,Thou the Son of God hast sold!