Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

The Celestial Passion. Part 2. 4. Cost

Because Heaven's cost is Hell, and perfect joy
⁠     Hurts as hurts sorrow; and because we win
⁠     Some boon of grace with the dread cost of sin,
⁠     Or suffering born of sin; because the alloy
Of blood but makes the bliss of victory brighter;
     ⁠Because true worth hath surest proof herein,
⁠     That it should be reproached, and called akin
     ⁠To evil things—black making white the whiter;
Because no cost seems great near this—that He
     ⁠Should pay the ransom wherewith we were priced;
⁠     And none could name a darker infamy
Than that a god was spit upon,—enticed
⁠     By those he came to save, to the accursèd tree,—
⁠     For this I know that Christ indeed is Christ. 

1. The New Day. Part 3. 29. The Unknown Way
2. The New Day. Part 4. 16. “Love Is Not Bond to Any Man”
3. The New Day. Part 3. 31. “When the Last Doubt Is Doubted”
4. The New Day. Part 4. 2. The Mirror
5. The New Day. Part 4. 17. “He Knows Not the Path of Duty”

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