• Author: Gates, Ellen M. H.
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 12 5 1917
• Tags:
• poetry
• advice
• patriotism

YOUR MISSION

(This was President Lincoln’s favorite song, one which he encored no less than eighteen times when sung on a Sunday school convention in Washington in 1864.)

If you cannot on the ocean Sail among the swiftest fleet Rocking on the highest billows, Laughing at the storms you meet, You can stand among the sailors, Anchored yet within the bay, You can lend a hand to help them As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey Up the mountain, steep and high, You can stand within the valley While the multitudes go by; You can chant in happy measure As they slowly pass along— Though they may forget the singer, They will not forget the song. If you have not gold and silver Ever ready at command; If you cannot toward the needy Reach an ever-helping hand, You can succor the afflicted, O’er the erring. you can weep; With the Savior’s true disciples You a tireless watch may keep.

If you cannot in the harvest Garner up the richest sheaves, Many a grain, both ripe and golden, Oft the careless reaper leaves; Go and glean among the briers Growing rank against the wall, For it may be that their shadow Hides the heaviest wheat of all.

If you cannot in the conflict Prove yourself a soldier true If where fire and smoke are thickest There’s no work for you to do, When the battlefield is silent, You can go with careful tread— You can bear away the wounded, You can cover up the dead.

Do not, then, stand idly waiting For some greater work to do; Fortune is a lazy goddess— She will never come to you, Go and toil in any vineyard; Do not fear to do or dare— If you want a field of labor You can find it anywhere.

Ellen M. H. Gates.