314 



THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP, xvn, 



That shines upon the lily's dew-bent cup ; 



And one poor sinner, crushed with shame and fear, 



VVas brought before Him by unfeeling men, 



That He might give her sin its due award, 



He stooped as if He saw and heard them not, 



With His own thoughts of pity occupied : 



And with His finger in the fleeting dust, 



That gathered on the temple's marble floor, 



He wrote the law that she had broken there. 



Inscribed in dust, the motes displaced, again 



Would settle in the lines and fill them up ; 



A careless passing foot would stamp them out ; 



Or the same Hand that made them could efface 



Their transient record of a moment's guilt. 



Not on hard granite does He write our sins, 



But in the dust from which frail man was formed, 



And into which he soon returns again 



Which a mere touch or breath obliterates. 



He knows the weakness of the human heart ; 



And while no jot or tittle of His holy law, 



Tho' heaven and earth should be dissolved in mist, 



Can pass away until it be fulfilled 



His grace can pardon all iniquities, 



And blot them out of His recording book. 



Transferred from granite stone and temple floor, 



To the dread tree on which He hung for us, 



The handwriting that was against our sins 



Was nailed ; His blood has washed the record clean. 



And now nor God nor man can us accuse ; 



We go in pardoned peace and sin no more. 



