That They Also May Be One In Us Poem by John Bowring

From house to house the apostles went,
With arms of truth and words of power,
By their great Master trained and sent,
His own beatitude to shower
Around them-wheresoe'er they trod-
The spirit and the might of God.


Distress, disease, and discontent,
And ignorance, and fear, and vice,
Fled from their path, and virtue lent
Its influence to the sacrifice
Of all the world deems good, to claim
A heritage of woe and shame.


We follow in their steps; the light
Which filled their hearts and led their way
Now beams on us, as fair and bright
As once on them; and we, as they,
May onward guide and onward go-
Torches to cheer this vale below.


Then to our labour, for the night
Is coming, and the evening wanes,
And death will blast, and time will blight,
Our noblest hopes, our wisest plans.
Life is a web-a shade-a breath-
And there's long solitude in death.