| |
| THE PRIEST bent angry gaze upon the Jew, | |
| “What base ingratitude. Shame, shame that you | |
| Who love the Father, should deny His Son. | |
| Christ, Jesus, is Divine, with God is one. | |
| His coming was foretold. His glorious birth, | 5 |
| A miracle, His gentle life on earth. | |
| |
| An inspiration and His body bled | |
| For us, that through His death our souls be led | |
| To God. He died for us. Oh, stiff-necked race, | |
| Forever shall the glory of God’s face | 10 |
| Be turned from you. Christ is the Lord. Take heed. | |
| Confess Him and from all your sins be freed.” | |
. . . . . . And swift the Jew replied: “‘Christ is the Lord!’ | |
| You forced upon the world with rack and sword. | |
| Your sins are legion. Oh, the awful moan | 15 |
| Of babes and mothers, maids and men and youth | |
| Who died because they dared refuse the truth | |
| You claimed. For these things how can you atone, | |
| How ease your burdened conscience, how forget | |
| The needless misery you caused? | 20 |
. . . . . . “And yet | |
| Although you maimed us with the scourge and flame | |
| And tortured and reviled us ‘in His name’; | |
| We reach our arms in friendliness to you | |
| And plead for peace. We are God’s children, too, | 25 |
| Have known the love and mercy in the Face | |
| He turned to us, His priests and chosen race, | |
| ‘Acknowledge Christ,’ you say, ‘and save your soul. | |
| Confess our creed. This is the only toll | |
| Required to enter heaven and from sin | 30 |
| Be freed.’ ‘Serve thou no other God but Me | |
| And love your fellowmen.’ This is our key | |
| To life. We love the Father, He is One. | |
| We need no mediator. ‘Christ, the Son,’ | |
| Was but God’s child like all of us. His kin, | 35 |
| The atheist, agnostic, Jew and Turk | |
| And Christian. And his equal, all who shirk | |
| No sacrifice for fellowmen. Some may | |
| Not hold like creed with you. For one will say | |
| He worships Reason. One doubts Christ is King. | 40 |
| One calls God, allah. Does that matter? Fling | |
| Afar your doctrine. Cast aside your fears, | |
| Seek out the weeping ones and dry their tears. | |
| The sick, the halt, the sinner and the blind, | |
| Oh, pity them and love them and be kind. | 45 |
| For, after all, the helpful human deed | |
| By Christian, Turk or Jew to one in need | |
| Can bring more souls to God than all man’s creed.” | |
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