The mystic plants of faith and hope to bear
Immortal fruitage of sweet charity;
For I believe that every piety,
And every thirst for truth is gift divine,
The gifts of God are not to me unclean
Though strangely honoured at an unknown shrine.
In temples of the past my spirit fain
For old-time strength and vigour would implore
As in a ruined abbey, fairer for
"The unimaginable touch of time"
We long for the sincerity of yore.

But this is not man's mood, in his regime
Sweet "calm decay" becomes mischance unmeet,
And dying creeds sink to extinction,
Hooted, and scorned, and sepultured in hate,
Denied their rosary of good deeds and boon
Of reverence and holy unction--
First in the list of crimes man writes defeat.

These purest dreams of this our low estate,
White-robed vestals, fond and vain designs,
I lay a wreath at your forgotten shrines.

Nearly four hundred years ago, Nanuk, a man of a gentle spirit, lived
in the Punjaub, and taught that God is a spirit. He enunciated the
solemn truth that no soul shall find God until it be first found of Him.
This is true religion. The soul that apprehends it readjusts its
affairs, looks unto God, and quietly waits for Him. The existence of an
Omnipresent Holiness was alike the beginning and the burden of his