JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Broadside publication of Whittier's Our Countrymen in Chains,
One of his many abolitionist poems.

Mona and Walter have been reading poems written by John Greenleaf Whittier from a booklet given to them years ago by Sybil. Mona writes of her pleasure in finding words to a hymn with which she was familiar, embedded in a longer poem. The hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is included in Worship in Song on page 139. I am particularly fond of it because it is a plea for forgiveness.

Mona wrote:

John Greenleaf Whittier

In a small edition of “Selections from the Religious Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier” authored by the Track Association of Friends (1838), it was written “Reading Whittier's religious poems is like swimming in a deep lake, one may pick at the words like stones, or recall phrases from childhood memory…..As one goes further beneath the cadence of words, one discovers eternal truths”.

I was reading one of his many versed poems written in the style of poets in that era called The Brewing of Soma, a poem in which Whittier compares religions of his time to Quakers. Halfway through the eighteen versed poem I became aware the words were familiar. There it was, these words that growing up, I had sung from the Methodist Hymnal, moreover I could remember every word. It was from this many versed poem written by Whittier in 1873 and set to music in 1887 by Frederick C. Maker. It is a hymn that most churches of various faiths sing today!

In this small volume I also read Whittier’s poem “Quakers of the Olden Time”. In my memory, I could see many worshipers that I had sat among in Meeting for Worship. Persons who, one hundred fifty years later, in my memory could be as he described as “Quakers “ in my olden days!!

 

The Quaker of the olden time!

He felt that wrong with wrong partakes

How calm and firm and true,
Unspotted by its wrong and crime,
He walked the dark earth through. 

The lust of power, the love of gain,
The thousand lures of sin
Around him, had no power to stain
The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects
All great things in the small,
And knows how each man's life affects
The spiritual life of all,
He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law;
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wrong partakes,
That nothing stands alone,
That whoso gives the motive, makes
His brother's sin his own.
And, pausing not for doubtful choice
Of evils great or small,
He listened to that inward voice
Which called away from all.
O Spirit of that early day,
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
Give strength the evil to forsake,
The cross of Truth to bear,
And love and reverent fear to make
Our daily lives a prayer!