Folliott Sandford Pierpont (1835-1917) was exactly what he sounds like: a wealthy British heir with time on his hands and a song in his heart. Freed early on from the burdens of earning a living, he devoted much of his long life to writing poems and hymns, and was good enough at both to make a name for himself – as if an appellation like Folliott Sandford Pierpont needed help in that department.
Sad to say, his work is largely forgotten today, and only one of his hymns – “For The Beauty Of The Earth” is still sung with any regularity … usually around Thanksgiving, in churches that still know a classic when they hear one.
I happened to catch a rendition of the song on the radio the other day, and was struck by a phrase in the first verse:
“For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.
Christ, our Lord, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.”
The line that caught my attention was, “For the love which from our birth / Over and around us lies.”
I've been musing, as I often do, on the changes in our dog, Archie, who seems to be coming into his own in surprising ways, early in his third year. A happy enough little Schnauzer most of the time, he has often been paralyzed, in moments of play, by his fears. Out on the street, he’s willing enough to take on all comers, big or small. But in the hallowed halls of home, all sorts of things give him … pause. The narrow space behind a door, the hum of a looming floor fan, even the immobility of his own crowded toy box.
We’ve been working for a while to get him past these phobias. Placing his favorite toy deep behind the door, or on top of the fan, we urge him to “Get it,” and assure him that “You can do it!” Most of the time, he is loath to believe us, but gradually – oh, so slowly – we’ve made progress.
The other day, one of his balls rolled behind the big dresser, just as Archie was sitting down to give his full attention to chewing on another, more favored toy. “Archie,” I said, pointing to the scary, shadowy slot between dresser and wall, “Get it!”
To my astonishment, he immediately dropped the toy of the moment, hurried over, and burrowed his way back into the dark corner, then backed out with the ball in his mouth. He looked up at me like, “What else you got?”
He’s learning to get his toys off the fan, too.
It’s a remarkable thing, watching a dog … learn. Seeing him stretch his ingenuity – grow braver, more confident.
And then, wondering how an even greater learning happens, in the mind and heart of a child.
We weren’t blessed with children, but have enjoyed so much watching those of our friends come into the world and grow. The wonder of these little ones, taking in the big, wide universe with all its colors and sounds and actions and smells, its flavors and music, faces and hands and objects soft and shiny – is nothing compared with watching that wonder in action … a tiny mind processing a million moments faster than it ever will again.
When does a child know … love? When does our sense of self take root? When do we first know what we’re laughing at, and why? When do we first become aware of God?
None of us, of course, looking back, can really remember, but it’s interesting to take note of how Helen Keller described her experience. Blinded and deafened by illness when she was less than two years old, she lived in a world of total isolation until the age of seven. Then, her parents hired Anne Sullivan as her teacher, and Ms. Sullivan famously found a way to break through to Helen’s heart and mind. She wasn’t the only one.
This is how Ms. Keller later described the experience:
“Thoughts that ran forward and backward came to me quickly — thoughts that seemed to start in my brain and spread all over me. Now I see it was my mental awakening. I think it was an experience somewhat in the nature of a revelation … The world to which I awoke was still mysterious; but there were hope and love and God in it, and nothing else mattered. Is it not possible that our entrance into heaven may be like this experience of mine?”
What a happy possibility. Even before her “great awakening,” though, Ms. Keller realized she was not alone.
“I always knew [God] was there,” she wrote. “I just did not know His name.”
Abortion, evil as it is, doesn’t take that knowledge away. Or deprive a precious fledgling soul of its eternal fellowship with God. What it does do is interrupt the revelation. Deprive a child of those wonders of discovery. Short-circuit the extraordinary process by which a soul comes into its own.
“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man,” Clint Eastwood’s character says in Unforgiven. “Take away all he’s got … and all he’s ever gonna have.”
Estimates are that more than 63.5 million babies have been aborted since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Much of the debate about the issue swirls around whether those millions were actually human lives at all. But I think, not even all that deep down, most of us know they were.
What isn’t discussed nearly so often is what those losses, individually and en masse, have cost us as a people, as a nation, as a world. Among so many millions, there must have been some extraordinary talents. Artists, musicians, writers, athletes. Gifted scientists and doctors who might well have figured out a cure for cancer, better treatments for depression, how to feed a starving world more effectively.
Individuals whose communication skills might have helped us to better understand each other. Might surely have come to lead our nations more effectively than those who are leading them now. Might even have been blessed to communicate the Gospel in ways that would have led millions more to embrace Christ and His salvation.
A heaven so crowded with babies who never experienced full life might well be filled, instead, with youth and adults who found holy love and eternal truth through what those growing babies learned … and shared.
What justifies such a sacrifice – those 60-plus million, multiplied by all the lives they might have changed? By all the babies they might one day have brought into the world themselves. Is that a price we’re so eagerly, casually, brutally willing to pay for … a faster career track? Some uninhibited sex? A little less personal responsibility? Political advantage?
At its worst, abortion is more than cruel contempt for a helpless child in the womb. It’s contempt for the endless wonder and mysteries of life. “For the love which, from our birth, over and around us lies.”
In the end, it's contempt for God Himself.
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