The Great Teacher

I love to feel that I am taught,
And, as a little child,

I love to feel that I am taught,
And, as a little child,
To note the lessons I have learnt
In passing through the wild.
For I am sure God teaches me,
And His own gracious hand
Each varying page before me spreads,
By love and wisdom planned.

I often think I cannot spell
The lesson I must learn,
And then, in weariness and doubt,
I pray the page may turn;
But time goes on, and soon I find
I was learning all the while;
And words which seemed most dimly
traced
Shine out with rainbow smile.

Or sometimes strangely I forget,
And, learning o’er and o’er,
A lesson all with tear-drops wet,
Which I had learnt before.
He chides me not, but waits awhile,
Then wipes my heavy eyes:
Oh what a Teacher is our God,
So patient and so wise!

Dark, silent hours of study fall;
And I can scarcely see:
Then one beside me whispers low
What is so hard to me.
“T is easier then!  I am so glad
I am not taught alone;
It is such help to overhear
A lesson like my own.

Sometimes the Master gives to me
A strange, new alphabet;
I wonder what its use will be,
Or why it need be set.
And then I find this tongue alone
Some stranger ear can reach,
One whom He may commission me
For Him to train or teach.

If others sadly bring to me
A lesson hard and new,
I often find that helping them
Has made me learn it too.
Or, had I learnt it long before,
My toil is overpaid,
If so one tearful eye may see
One lesson plainer made.

We do not see our Teacher’s face,
We do not hear His voice;
And yet we know that He is near,
We feel it, and rejoice.
There is a music round our hearts,
Set in no mortal key;
There is a Presence with our souls,
We know that it is He.

His loving teaching cannot fail;
And we shall know at last
Each task that seemed so hard and strange,
When learning-time is past.
Oh!  may we learn to love Him more,
By every opening page,
By every lesson He shall mark
With daily ripening age.

And then, to “know as we are known”
Shall be our glorious prize,
To see the Teacher who hath been
So patient and so wise.
O joy untold!  Yet not alone
Shall ours the gladness be;
The travail of His soul in us
Our Saviour-God shall see.

Frances Ridley Havergal