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Youth Messenger Online Edition

July-September

The People’s Friend
The People’s Friend

All hail the Christ of Nazareth,

Who came to banish strife.

He took the bitterness from death,

The hopelessness from life.

He gave to faith a mode of speech

It ne’er had known before;

But, best of all, He came to preach

The Gospel to the poor.

Although the dawn of glory broke

Upon His natal morn,

He came from poor and humble folk,

And He was lowly born.

He was a common carpenter;

He labored for His bread.

On all the earth He had not where

To lay His weary head.

In humble guise and simple dress,

He went from place to place.

He deigned to share earth’s wretchedness,

To save a fallen race.

Although He left a legacy,

The richest ever known,

He lived Himself to poverty,

With naught to call His own.

Unto the toiling multitude

He opened heaven’s gate,

But said the rich should not intrude

Into that blest estate.

He said that Mammon’s sordid slaves

Could never be the Lord’s;

He smote the money-changing knaves

With whip of plaited cord.

From scribe and priest and Pharisee

He tore the cloak of fraud.

He recognized no royalty

Excepting that of God.

Degrees and castes to Him were naught.

Within His splendid plan,

He knew but equals; and He taught

The brotherhood of man.

He sought to make this warring earth

More like the world above.

He sought to bring a state to birth,

Built on the law of love;

A state of charity and peace,

Of good will unto men,

Where all should share the world’s increase,

And He should come again.

He pointed to the highest good,

The truest liberty.

He taught that love and brotherhood

Alone can make us free.

If men would follow His commands,

The clouds would roll away,

And, breaking over all the lands,

Would come the grander day.

He was the poor man’s dearest Friend,

The truest ever known.

The things He taught would bring an end

To Shylock, bond, and throne;

Would put a stop to greed and war;

Would free the world from hate;

And on the future’s shining shore,

Would plant the social state.

O Carpenter of Nazareth,

We need Thy presence now;

Thy people still are led to death,

The thorns upon their brow!

A prayer for Thee, o’er all the earth,

Comes from the toiling throng,

To bring the better day to birth,

And free the world from wrong.