"To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).

A little child was playing by the shore of the broad blue sea,
And oft he looked away across the waves, so wonderingly.
It was a new entrancing sight to him, that watery waste,
The tossing billows breaking on the sand with foam wreaths graced.
And often in his distant inland home, with childish glee,
The boy would say to young and older friends, "I have seen the sea."
And so he had; the child made no mistake, his words were true;
But yet how much of ocean's vast expanse had met his view?
Only the waves that rippled on the shore; while far away,
The broad Atlantic in its depth and strength beyond him lay.
And thus we say we know the love of Christ; and so we do;
'Tis no exaggeration or mistake, but sweetly true.
But ah! how much of that unfathomed love do we yet know?
Only the ripples on the shores of time, the nearer flow.
The mighty ocean of redeeming love rolls deep and wide,
Filling eternity and heaven and earth with its vast tide.
We know it by a sweet experience now; yet shall explore,
Its breadth and length, its depth and height of grace, for evermore.