Poems (Coolidge)/Old-Fashioned Religion

by Helen Elizabeth Coolidge

OLD-FASHIONED RELIGION

We've forgotten, in the bustle of these modern times we know,
The tender, true religion of the peaceful long ago;
A dim and shadowy picture that memory scarce can see,
The grandmother so saintly, the Good Book on her knee.

We've forgotten baby voices as they lisped the little prayer;
We've forgotten mother's teachings (left now in nurse's care);
All the troubled child-confessions that mothers used to hear,
And "father" is a "governor" now, not one they must revere.

We've forgotten all the blessings of the times we daily knelt
For the hallowed, sweet home-worship that so earnestly wo felt;
When "father" read the chapter and "mother" raised the hymn;
Oh! as I now recall it my eyes with tears grow dim.

We've forgotten all those Sundays which so happily were spent,
When "going to church" was something that life a beauty lent;
When hymns were sung with fervor to tunes we each had learned,
And we filled the mission-boxes with the pennies we had earned.

We've forgotten! Ah, remembrance grows faint and fainter yet,
And the days that speed us onward we shall more and more regret,
If we strive not to remember that blessed long ago,
When Jesus Christ, the lowly, a perfect life did show.