Sometimes feel so passionate a yearning
For spiritual perfection here below,
This vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning,
Seems my determined foe.

So actively it makes a stern resistance,
So cruelly it sometimes wages war
Against the higher spiritual existence,
Which I am striving for.

It interrupts my soul's intense devotions ;
Some hope it strangles at its very birth
With a swift rush of violent emotions
Which link me to the earth.

It is as if two mortal foes contended
Within my bosom in a deadly strife ;
One for the loftier aims Jesus intended,
One for the "Mammon" life.

And yet I know this very war within me,
Which brings out all my will-power and control ;
This very conflict yet through Christ shall win me
The loved and longed-for goal.

And when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
Sometimes I wonder if we shall not find
That not for deeds alone, but also what's resisted,
Our places were assigned.