Change language

::R5995 : page 391::

ECCE HOMO!

[In loving remembrance of Pastor Russell and his Ministry.]

“Loved and hated! Revered and reviled! Spurned and courted! Flattered, defiled! With never a falter and never a frown He kept to his moorings, and laid his life down In the place where God put him. What more can be said For soldier or hero? For living or dead? He wept with the anguished; he smiled with the glad: He lifted the fallen; he heartened the sad; He pitied the sinner, inspired the saint; He strengthened the feeble, recovered the faint. God gave him a Message—he gave it to men: He patiently told it again and again.

“When men’s eyes were blinded and ears could not hear, And men’s souls were stunted by folly or fear, When minds were beclouded by dullness or doubt He maneuvered the Message and turned it about Till ‘the wayfaring man, tho a fool,’ could behold And hear the glad Gospel he patiently told. And yet will like rabble as stood by the Cross, Not knowing their folly, not sensing their loss, Flouting and scouting and wagging their head, Stand by in contempt while we weep o’er our dead, Dishonoring the prophet of this, their own time, And crowning him saint when the World sees their crime.

“Behold now the Man?—Or wait world-old way To pay him the tribute we owe him today? Stand reverently now, with uncovered head, And look on ‘that Servant’ and honor the dead! A Man has gone from us, leaving none in his place, Yet his Message of Truth men can never efface. He’d the mind of a master, the heart of a child, The courage of Caesar, a soul undefiled. He’d the love of a father, a shepherd’s kind care, The faults of a human and sympathy rare. He lifted a standard and held it up high. He lived—ready to live and ready to die!”

====================

— December 15, 1916 —