THE DEADLIEST SIN

There are not many sins when once we sift them.

In actions of evolving human souls

Striving to reach high goals

And falling backward into dust and mire,

Some element we find that seems to lift them

Above our condemnation — even higher

Into the realm of pity and compassion.

So beauteous a thing as love itself can fashion

A chain of sins; descending to desire,

It wanders into dangerous paths, and leads

To most unholy deeds,

And light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.

Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,

A rank weed grown from some neglected flower,

The lightning uncontrolled: flames meant for joy

And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.

For sins like these repentance can atone.

There is one sin alone

Which seems all unforgivable, because

It springs from no temptation and no need

And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed,

And to defame God's laws.

Oh! viler than the murderer or the thief

Who slays the body and who robs the purse,

Is he who strives to kill the mind's belief

And rob it of its hope

Of life beyond this little pain-filled span.

God has no curse

Quite dark enough to punish such a man,

Who, seeing how souls grope

And suffer in this world of mighty losses,

And how hearts stagger on beneath life's crosses,

Yet strives to rob them of their staff of faith

And make them think dark death

Ends all existence; think the worshipped child

Cold in its mother's arms is but a clod

And has not gone to God;

That souls united by love undefiled

And holy can by death be torn asunder

To meet no more.

It must be true that under

This earth of ours there lies a Purgatory

For those who seek to rob grief of the glory

That shines through hope of life immortal. In

Sin's lexicon this is the vilest sin -

Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean,

Without one poor excuse on which to lean,

A vandal sin, that with no hope of gain

Finds pleasure only in another's pain.

God! though all other sins on earth persist,

Strike dumb the blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.