BELIEF.

The pain we have to suffer seems so broad,

Set side by side with this life’ s narrow span,

We need no greater evidence that God

Has some diviner destiny for man.

He would not deem it worth His while to send

Such crushing sorrows as pursue us here,

Unless beyond this fleeting journey’ s end

Our chastened spirits found another sphere.

So small this world! So vast its agonies!

A future life is needed to adjust

These ill-proportioned, wide discrepancies

Between the spirit and its frame of dust.

So when my soul writhes with some aching grief.

And all my heart-strings tremble at the strain,

My Reason lends new courage to Belief,

And all God’ s hidden purposes seem plain.