The mystery is great, disclosed but never probed,
How the eternal Word in flesh and blood was robed;
Apart from sin and spotless—as Babe the Holy One—
How right the Magi’s worship of Him who left the throne!
How blessed to adore and God’s salvation see,
As Simeon confessed in wondrous ecstasy
When gazing on that Infant face which satisfied his heart
And set him longing, full of peace, that moment to depart.
Who but the holy Babe had widowed Anna too?
And yet she spoke of Him to other souls she knew,
Who for redemption looked; and all expectant
Beheld it in that Babe not yet the Lord triumphant.
About His Father’s business in childhood’s early age,
Asking and answering questions amid the elders sage,
Refusing blame His mother gave, but yet in accents mild,
Obedient and subject, although not Joseph’s child.
Exhibiting eternal life in all His peerless ways,
In youth, or when He had attained unto full manhood’s days;
How beauteously it shone when there upon the cross
He gave His mother to the care that might supply His loss.
So we worship Thee, blessed Lord, in each step of Thy pathway here,
And offer our adoration in reverent godly fear;
As Babe, or Child, or Youth, or as the rejected Man,
Thy glories are far beyond our ken, yet for faith’s eye—to scan.
Ascended now, Thou hast a name beyond all others high,
Thou’rt seated on Thy Father’s throne and girt with majesty;
But not more now art Thou true God and the eternal Life,
Than here along Thy lowly path, and ‘mid Calvary’s awful strife.
W. N. T.