Supply and Demand

The Lord’s Prayer. The Importunate Friend. The Father.

(The Gospel History, Section 91)

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Supply and Demand

(The Saviour of the World, Vol VI Book III Poem XXVIII)

Men weary their uneasy mind
That they equation fair may find
Between the world’s too scant Supply
And the Demand, whose urgent cry
Reverberates ceaseless in the ear
Of him would walk in love and fear.

A new thing, this, they say, and sigh;
The men of old, not theirs to try
To equalise things unequal found,
To make the strait Supply go round,
To still Demand’s incessant claim,
Nor work injustice in the name
Of pity, charity and love;
Our times are hard all times above!

How wonderful Thy ways, O Lord,
What strange solutions in Thy Word!
Thou bidd’st Demand come, clamorous, there,
Where the Father sits to answer prayer:
Dost unconditioned charter grant
To whoso comes with urgent want:
Nay, ask and have! It is the law,
If any to God’s throne shall draw,
Urging his passionate request,
He’s answered by as prompt behest:
“Go,” saith the Father to those Powers
Who wait His pleasure through the hours,—
“See ye that man, behold, he prays:
Now look ye to it that his days
Be graced with that he doth demand!
No man craves vainly at My hand;
Who knocks at My door is brought in;
Who grieves him for his heavy sin,
Losing his burden, goes away
Rejoicing in the cheerful day;
Who seeks, scarce knowing how to name
The good he craves, shall find the same;
How were I Father if one child
Of all My offspring, rude or mild,
Should seek in vain His Father’s ear
Nor get what thing he asks?”

In fear

Of God, in joy of such vast hope,
His hearers’ trembling lips dared ope
To cry on Christ:—“Too good the news,
That God will ne’er his boon refuse
To him who asks, believing; say,
Can e’en Almighty God display
Such power, such lavish wealth bestow,
On countless suppliants below?”

“Nay, children, will ye understand
That nothing may that prayer withstand
A child brings to his father’s ear;
And are ye not God’s children dear?
Nay, even ye know how to give
Those gifts by which your children live;
Who proffers stone or serpent, when
His child asks bread or fish? If, then,
Ye know to give the thing that’s good
To your dependent clamorous brood
Tho’ ye be evil, ye shall find
God who is Good, your Father kind,
Knows how to grant him all his mind
Who comes in prayer.

“Shall He not give

His Spirit that His child may live?
For every prayer a man may raise
Asks life, more fulness in his days;—
One answer for all prayers is meet;
The Father sends the Paraclete,
And with His coming is there life,
Fulness of days, surcease of strife:
The Father’s single gift contains
Appeasement for all human pains,
For all men’s cravings for increase,
For weary sighings after peace;
No good thing that a man requires
But comes with Pentecostal fires;
All ‘comfort, life and fire of love’
Descend with the celestial Dove!
Would any man ask more than these,—
Substance, good friends and general ease?
No good thing will your God refuse
To child who his own Father sues.”

St. Luke xi. 9–13.

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