To Mercy Pity Peace And Love
...their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
is God our Father dear;
and Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
is Man, his Child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
and Love, the human form divine.
and Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
that prays in his distress,
prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
in heathen, Turk or Jew;
where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
there God is dwelling too.
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This beautiful song has been written by William Blake (1757-1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th- century. Blake has recorded that from his early years, he experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks and that he saw and conversed with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, and various historical figures. Misunderstanding shadowed his career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance. This song defines the essence of humanity and divinity in terms that include no reference to reason or justice. In looking beyond the forms that distinguish creeds to the human form that unites them, it works against the divisive assumptions of more orthodox chirstian writers such as Issac Watts. In "Praise for the Gospel" Watts wrote:
Lord, I ascribe it to thy Grace
And not to chance, as others do
That I was born of Christian Race
And not a Heathen, or a jew.
Blake's song not only asserts that all creeds have the same emotional basis but implies that all are essentially
Christian. Its view of the relationship between humanity and divinity is compareable to that in I John 4.16: "God id Love; and he that dwelleth in love...
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