There’s a beautiful word which I often have heard,
Its meaning I wish much to know;
I think if we look we shall find in God’s Book
About being “whiter than snow.”
It puzzles me much to think there is such,
For, for whiteness there’s nothing I know
With the snow to compare, so shining and fair;—
Then what can be “whiter than snow”?
Perhaps angels’ wings, or some beautiful things
Which I as a child cannot know;
If I think all the day, I never could say
What there is that is “whiter than snow.”
The snowdrop looks brown with its head drooping down
On its white winter border below,
And the lily, though white, I’m sure has not quite,
The claim to be “whiter than snow.”
But a child cannot find out the depth of God’s mind;
To a wiser than I, I will go,
And ask Him to tell, for I’d like to know well,
Of this wonderful “whiter than snow.”
But can God behold, as I have been told,
A child who’s so little and low?
And can it be true, if my heart is made new,
That I shall be “whiter than snow”?
I thought of the flowers freshen’d up by the showers,
Of the clouds with the bright sunlight glow;
I could not have thought it was I who was brought,
And wash’d and made “whiter than snow.”
How sweet! —it is true that I am made new
If washed in the blood that did flow
So freely to cleanse away the dark stains,
And to make our hearts “whiter than snow.”
And now that I’m Thine, O! teach me to shine,
And in love and in wisdom to grow;
From sin undefiled, dear Lord, keep Thy child,
Who is washed, and made “whiter than snow.”
ML 03/25/1917