THY WILL BE DONE by Frances E. Pope

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, March 4, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 10

THY WILL BE DONE.

By Frances E. Pope

Thy will be done! Not lightly be it spoken, To fall like tinkling cymbals on the air; Beyond all other words are these the token Of resignation conquered from despair.

Not all who say, “Lord! Lord!” can tell what measure Of heavy cost it takes their depth to learn; What loss of ease, what sacrifice of treasure, What exile out of which is no return.

He who has proved this saying bears the traces Of furnace-fires that spare the gold alone; His conversation is in heavenly places; His life is lived as God’s and not his own.

His soul in restful patience he possesses, Nor sighs for hopes that vanished unfulfilled, As one who meets with loss, yet still increases Regretful dreams with spirit half self-willed.

No more in things of time his heart is centered; For he has seen their preciousness decrease; Has weighed the world and proved it void, and entered The upper chamber of abiding peace.

Thy will be done! Oh, utterance magnetic! That thrills anew the soul’s diviner chords, With deep compassion for that woe prophetic Which filled the anguished chalice of our Lord’s.

Behold in that sublime self-abnegation, What lowly path the Man of Sorrows trod, And know that out of thy humiliation Shall grow the grace to stand before thy God.

Then not with lip irreverent be spoken The hallowed words of God’s all-suffering Son; But say with contrite heart and spirit broken, Through loss, through sorrow, “Let thy will be done!”

—Frances E. Pope.