Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/41

 IV.

Yet earnestly the pious man bcsought, That Heaven would deign to shed the Gospel light On the kind pagan's soul, as yet untaught Save in the dreams of her primordial night; And much he prayed, that to the truth when brought,— Cleansed of his sins in garments pure and white,— He might subdue the fierceness of his clan, And gain man refuge from intolerant man.

V.

Williams the task of goodness now essayed, To win the wanderer to a worship new; The utter darkness that his soul arrayed, Concealed her workings from our Founder's view, Save when some question, rare and strange, betrayed His dream-bewildered glimpses of the true.— Long was the task; and Williams back began, At earth's creation and the fall of man.

VI.

He told how God from nothing formed the earth, And gave each creature shape surpassing fair; How He in Eden, at their happy birth, Placed with His blessing the first human pair; How, disobeying, they were driven forth, And they, and theirs, consigned to sad despair, Until, incarnate, God in pity gave Himself for man, and made it just to save.

VII.

He then told how the blessed martyrs bore The chains of dungeons, and the fagot's flame, Glad that their sufferings might attest the more Their perfect faith in their Redeemer's name;