The Cyber Hymnal ‎#9192

9192. The Silence of Faith

1 I cannot master time and space,
Nor bid impetuous ages stay;
I cannot alter noon and night,
Nor turn the shadows into day.
I may not span unmeasured skies,
Nor grasp the Pleiads in my hand;
The far and near, the great and small
I see, but cannot understand.
I helpless sit, hemmed in by power
And will superior to my own,
Encompassed round by laws unseen,
Controlled by all, controlling none;
Yet I can lean on Him who guides
The sky, and sea, and faithful tides.

2 I cannot bid the tomb disgorge
The trophies of the tyrant’s power;
I cannot charm the spoiler’s hate,
Nor flush again one pallid flower.
A mortal ’mid the mortal here,
I mourn the silent, sad decay
Of all that makes this world so fair,
But cannot bid one radiance stay.
Fain would I loose the chain of ill
That fetters this sad, tortured earth,
Yet I can but its wrongs and woes
Commit to Him who gave it birth.
And to the Living One I fly
For health and immortality.

3 The current of one human will
Is far too strong for me to stem;
The rushing flood of a thousand wills,
How can I hope to baffle them?
I cannot alter right and wrong,
Nor change the false into the true;
I cannot judge the Judge of all,
His thoughts, His ways, His words review.
He speaks! I hear! O voice supreme,
Beyond all voices sweet, sublime!
He the eternal, wise and true,
And I bemisted child of time.
To Him in foolishness I come,
Before Him reverent and dumb.

4 I see the years like billows break
Upon the passive strand of time,
And as they break, sweep off in turn
Man’s works of every age and clime.
Who, what am I amid the wreck
Of all this beauty, love, and power,
O’er which I weep, but whose decay
I cannot hinder for an hour?
The true is never obsolete,
The never old is never stale;
I guard the gold of ancient mines,
And gather gems, though few and pale;
I call them fair—as fair as when
They dropped from God’s bright Heav’n for men.

Text Information

• First Line: I cannot master time and space
• Title: The Silence of Faith
• Author: Horatius Bonar (1879, alt.)
• Language: English
• Source: Hymns of the Nativity, and Other Pieces (London: James Nisbet, 1879)
• Copyright: Public Domain
• Notes: Alternate tune: SILENT FAITH by Scott Werdebaugh

Tune Information

• Name: [I cannot master time and space]
• Composer: Thomas Campbell (1825, adapt.)
• Adapter: Richard W. Adams (2019)
• Key: G Major or modal
• Copyright: Public Domain