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HOW WE LEARN

Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth,
Such as men give and take from day to day,
Comes in the common walk of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across our way.

Great truths are greatly won; not found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream;
But grasped in the great struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.

Sometimes, ‘mid conflict, fear and grief,
When the strong hand of God puts forth in might,
Ploughs up the subsoil of the stagnant heart,
It brings some buried truth-seeds to the light.

Not in the general mart, ‘mid corn and wine;
Not in the merchandise of gold and gems;
Not in the world’s gay hall of midnight mirth,
Nor ‘mid the blaze of regal diadems.

Not in the general clash of human creeds,
Nor in the merchandise ‘twixt church and world;
Truth springs like harvest from the well plowed fields,
Rewarding patient toil, and zeal, and faith.—Sel.

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— October, 1886 —