Wearily have the years passed, I know; wearily to the pale
watcher on the hill who has been so long gazing for the daybreak;
wearily to the anxious multitudes who have been waiting for his
tidings below. Often has the cry gone up through the darkness,
"Watcher, what of the night?" and often has the disappointing
come, "It is night still; here the stars are clear above me, but
they shine afar, and yonder the clouds lower heavily, and the sad
night winds blow." But the time shall come, and perhaps sooner
than we look for it, when the countenance of that pale watcher
shall gather into intenser expectancy, and when the challenge
shall be given, with the hopefulness of a nearer vision,
"Watcher, what of the night?" and the answer will come, "The
darkness is not so dense as it was; there are faint streaks on
the horizon's verge; mist is in the valleys, but there is a
radiance on the distant hill. It comes nearer--that promise of
the day. The clouds roll rapidly away, and they are fringed with
amber and gold. It is, it is the blest sunlight that I feel
around me--Morning! It is morning!"
- William Morley Punshon
It is, indeed, right that we should look for, and hasten, so far
as in us lies, the coming of the day of God; but not that we
should check any human effort by anticipations of its approach.
We shall hasten it best by endeavoring to work out the tasks that
are appointed for us here; and, therefore, reasoning as if the
world were to continue under its existing dispensation, and the
powers which have just been granted to us were to be continued
through myriads of future ages.
- John Ruskin
Last Revised: 2009 April 2
Copyright © 1999-2009 John C. Shepard. All Rights Reserved.
The GIGA name and logo are trademarks registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by John C. Shepard.
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