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<h2>At Joppa</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> PERCHANCE the day was fair as this— The eastern world is full of glow, With warmer sun, and bluer sky, And richer bloom than we can show— At Joppa quaint, beside the sea, When Simon Peter went to pray. </div> <div class="stanza"> I wonder if he did not pause Awhile to gaze on God’s great book, To read on earth, and sea, and sky, The smile divine, the tender look; For when the hour of vision’s given, The two worlds touch—our earth and heaven. </div> <div class="stanza"> God teaches with a tenderness That we who follow him should learn, Hides not His glory when ’twill bless Eyes that look up, and souls that yearn. He sent the vision fair to see, And spoke to Peter on that day.{21} </div> <div class="stanza"> Sleeping, the voice fell on his ears, I hear bold Peter say “Divine, ’Twill live and sound forever-more In this poor wayward heart of mine— ‘What God has cleansed,’ so broad, so free, My narrow creed flees shamed away.” </div> <div class="stanza"> Who would not be with Peter now? Blue heaven above, and earth below, So near to God, so far away From sin, and wretchedness, and woe. Before his eyes—gone, every doubt— The glory of the skies spread out. </div> <div class="stanza"> But hark! men knock upon the door, And voices call, and not in vain, For Peter comes down to the earth, And takes his life-work up again, Down from the fullness to the need, From God to man, a change indeed. </div> <div class="stanza"> We fain would on the housetop be, We fain would hold communion sweet, But looking up, we never heed The work unfinished at our feet. God, give to us, we humbly ask, Strength for the vision and the task. </div> </div></div> {22} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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