The Black Sheep

'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?'     Yes, sir - yes, sir:    three bags full.'     'I don't want any New Thought,' said he,     'Or any Theosophy, for, you see,     The faith I learned at my mother's knee     Is good enough for me.     Of course, I'm a wee bit broader than she,     Hearing one sermon where she heard three,     And I read my paper on Sunday, instead     Of the Bible only.    My mother said     I was a black sheep, when she saw     I strayed a trifle away from the law,     And didn't think every one left in the lurch     Who happened to go to a different church;     But, still, in the main, her creed is mine,     And I don't want anything more divine.'     Yet his mother's mother was more austere;     She taught her children a creed of fear,     And she called them 'black sheep' when, with a shock,     She saw them straying away from the flock,     Just far enough     To get around places they thought too rough,     Like infant damnation and endless hell.     But his mother's mother's mother would tell     How her mother thought it was God's sweet will     To punish and torture a heretic till     They drove out the devil that made him dare     Think for himself in the matter of prayer     And faith and salvation.    So we see how it is     If we look back over the centuries -     The creeds men learned at their mother's knee     When Salem witches were hanged to a tree,     And the pious dames flocked thither to see,     Are not deemed Christian or holy to-day;     And the bold black sheep who went straying away     From rut-worn paths in their search for God,     And leaped over the fence into pastures broad,     Are the great trail-makers for mortal souls,     Leading the race up to higher goals     And a larger religion; where man must find     God dwelling ever within his mind,     Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought,     And hell but the places where love is not.     A mighty religion that makes this earth     But the cradle that fits us for death's new birth     And the life beyond it, that is so near     Its echoes may reach to the listening ear.     'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?'     'Yes, sir - yes, sir:    a whole world full.'