To Win The World

Would you win all the world for Christ?
  One way there is and only one;
You must live Christ from day to day,
  And see His will be done.

But who lives Christ must tread His way,
  Leave self and all the world behind,
Press ever up and on, and serve
  His kind with single mind.

No easy way,--rough--strewn with stones,
  And wearisome, the path He trod.
But His way is the only way
  That leads man back to God.

And lonesome oft, and often dark
  With shame, and outcastry, and scorn,
And, at the end, perchance a cross,
  And many a crown of thorn.

But His lone cross and crown of thorn
  Endure when crowns and empires fall.
The might of His undying love
  In dying conquered all.

Only by treading in His steps
  The all-compelling ways of Love,
Shall earth be won, and man made one
  With that Great Love above.

--John Oxenham, 1852-1941