February 5, 2005

Immortal Love ~ Forever Full

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892

    For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height -- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19.

Love is Silence ~ When your words would hurt.
Love is Patience's ~ When your neighbor is curt.
Love is Deafness ~ When a scandal flows.
Love is Thoughtfulness ~ For others' woes.
Love is Promptness ~ When stern duty calls.
Love is Courage ~ When misfortune falls.
                                                        ~ Unknown

    At age 22, Whittier became editor of the American Manufacturer in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1830, he began editing the Haverhill Gazette and the New England Weekly Review (Hartford, Connecticut). In 1835, Whittier was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. From 1847 to 1859, he wrote for The National Era in Washington, DC.
    Whittier was influential in the antislavery movement, and served as secretary of the American Antislavery Society. When he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he edited the Pennsylvania Freeman. Mobs attacked him several times because of his views.
    Whittier is known as America’s “Quaker poet”; his works include The Panorama, and Other Poems, 1856. He also wrote almost 100 hymns.
    In 1867 John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker and recognized as one of America's finest poets, wrote a 38 stanza poem titled Our Master. This hymn text with its emphasis upon the constancy of God's immortal love was taken from that poem. It was Whittier who once stated "a good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be directed." The musical setting by William V. Wallace, a Scottish violinist and composer, was adapted from a longer love song, Waft, Ye Winds, written by Wallace in 1856.

Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away:
Shine out, O Light divine, and show
How wide and far we stray.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.

Through Him the first fond prayers are said
Our lips of childhood frame,
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His Name.

O Lord and Master of us all,
Whate’er our name or sign,
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
We test our lives by Thine.

The letter fails, the systems fall,
And every symbol wanes;
The Spirit over brooding all,
Eternal Love remains.