the altar

‘Let me tell you,’ replied Jesus, ‘if they stayed silent, the stones would be shouting out!’ — Luke 19:40

The Altar
by George Herbert

A broken A L T A R, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as they hand did frame
No workman’s too hath touch’d the same
A H E A R T alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy name.
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed S A C R I F I C E be mine,
And sanctify this A L T A R to be thine.

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From Herbert scholar, Jim Scott Orrick:

Ponder: Does true repentance include sorrow for sin? Herbert writes the poem not as someone coming to God for the first time, but as someone who has long loved and worshiped God. Ongoing sorrow for sin is an integral element of the spirit lives of many historic Christians we admire, but it is an element that is conspicuously absent in much modern worship, both private and public. Why do you think this is?