Have you ever cursed at the Master's work, when life's
been a sort of hell?
If so, then perhaps you will understand the story I'm
going to tell;
There are chaps you know who have never seen the
edge of a thing called life,
And have never known of the challenge thrown in the
darkness of the strife.
There's a land we knew in the days of old, when we
trudged the wilderness,
'Twas the land of pain, with the brand of Cain, the
home of the loneliness;
We had cursed it oft with the blackest curse, a
reckless and godless lot,
And headed our letters for going home, "the country
that God forgot."
We had all been out since the early Spring, and things
had been going wrong,
And it seemed misfortune had dogged our trail each
day, as it dragged along;
It appeared to be as an alien land, forsaken by God
and man,
Till we heard the voice of the one who gave it birth
when the world began.
We had cursed that day more than e'er before, as
fellows in anger do,
And a storm that gathered above us broke, soaking us
through and through;
As we tramped it back to the lonely camp, it seemed
that place was banned,
And Brown with an awful curse had said "The devil
controls the land."
Then the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed,
with its wondrous lurid glow,
And we who had challenged the wilderness wandered
the earth below.
It seemed that a message was from above, the
knowledge of endless things,
The power that quickens the soul of man, and models
the hearts of kings.
I remember as though 'twere yesterday, the lesson we
learnt that night,
The answer that broke on our startled ears, the voice
from the riven height.
The God we had challenged with angry words was
guarding and watching yet,
And loving the wilderness we had cursed, the God who
could not forget.
He knew of the lonely location crew, away in the
shadowed past,
He knew of the road we had come to build, reserving
it to the last.
He knew we would say He had long forgot the arid
and thirsty land,
But spoke from the heavens that night to show 'twas
even as He had planned.