The Scholar and the Beggar (rewritten)

Tauler, a well‑known and highly educated preacher from the fourteenth century once spent eight years praying that God would lead him to someone who could teach him the true path to heaven. Eventually, he felt guided to a specific church porch, where he was told he would meet a man who could help him understand the spiritual life.

When the scholar arrived, he found not a teacher or holy figure, but a beggar dressed in rags.

He greeted the man kindly and said, “God give you a good day, my friend.”

The beggar replied, “Sir, I can’t remember ever having a bad one.”

Subjection to God

"See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; neither is there any that  can deliver out of my hand." — Deut. 32. 39.

Sometimes doth my uplifted heart suggest
It is not good Jehovah's yoke to bear;
Forgive, oh God, the thought, and teach my breast,
There's safety in thine arm, and only there.
If God be not my master, where's my place?
If I his kingdom leave, where shall I go?
E'en frighted Chaos bows before his face,
And Hell's dark world doth his dominion know.
May my poor will, O God, be bowed to thine,
Each thought, each purpose, feeling, as thine own,
Ever harmonious with thy great design,
And humbly circling round the central throne,
In thee I live, with thee move joyous on,
Without thy power am lost, extinct, and gone.

— The Religious Offering (1835) Scripture Sonnets XI.

The Death of the Me

In Christ's dear kingdom, 'tis not ME:
In Christ's dear kingdom, 'tis not THEE;
But  ME and THEE, and MY and THINE,
Their separate life and power resign,
And clasp'd in ONE, become Divine.

The ME claims all things as its own;
And  THEE and THINE make self their throne;
But in the soul that's born again,
The selfish MINE and THINE are slain,
And Universal Love doth reign.

Oh sacred unity of soul!
The separate parts in one made whole;
All strifes and jealousies unknown;
All partial interests overthrown;
God All in All, and God alone.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXIII.