God in the Darkness

He sometimes walks behind the cloud;
And threatening storms His presence shroud;
His light is there; but all unseen,
Because the storm-cloud comes between.

From that dark cloud the bolts descend
The skies to cleave, the earth to rend;
But trusting hearts need not despair;
God guides the bolt; our God is there.

Oh transitory man and blind!
This consolation ever find;
That God, though shut from human view,
Is always present, always true.

As kind and faithful in the night,
As in the day-beam's cheerful light;
As kind and true, when storm-clouds hide,
As when the clouds are swept aside.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXIV.

Restoration to the Divine Image

"We are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." — 2 Cor. 3.18.

Upon the morning flower the dew's small drop,
So small as scarcely to arrest the eye,
Receives the rays from all of heaven's wide cope,
And images the bright and boundless sky.
And thus the heart, when 'tis renewed by grace,
Recalled from error, purified, erect,
Receives the image of Jehovah's face,
And though a drop, the Godhead doth reflect.
It hath new light, new truth, new purity,
A rectitude unknown in former time,
A love, that in its arms of charity
Encircles every land and every clime;
Submission, and in God a humble trust,
And quickened life to all that's pure and kind and just.

— The Religious Offering (1835) VIII.