Requirement

We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave

Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's,

Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds.

What asks our Father of His children, save

Justice and mercy and humility,

A reasonable service of good deeds,

Pure living, tenderness to human needs,

Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see

The Master's footprints in our daily ways?

No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife,

But the calm beauty of an ordered life

Whose very breathing is unworded praise!—

A life that stands as all true lives have stood,

Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good.