The Letters and Poems of Bishop Moule

Recently the editor has come across a 1921 book called, “The Letters and Poems of Bishop Moule” and the devotional content of this book is quite stunning. The following letter was written on 5 January 1919, less than two months after the end of the Great War (The First World War) and the subsequent poem during Passion Week of the same year.

Between the Cross and the Grave

“I have often lately prayed that daily, and to the end, I may live as in a tent pitched between the Cross and the Grave of our Lord - the empty Cross, symbol and seal of His finished work of sacrifice, and redemption, the empty grave, likewise the evidence and pledge of His eternal victory for us over the last enemy, death, and of our life hid with Him in God. May your tent be ever there also. It will be glad work one day to strike the tabernacles and to migrate from them to ‘the house not made with hands’ eternal in the heavens."

The Place of My Tent

SAFE sheltered from alarm and loss
I sit within my quiet tent;
'Twixt here a Grave and there a Cross
My days and nights in peace are spent.

Yon sanguined Cross is that which bore
Th' incarnate God who loved and died;
'Tis vacant now; His pangs are o'er,
And I in Him am justified.

Yon Grave once folded in its night
His holiest body riven and torn;
'Tis open now - a fount of light,
A gateway of immortal morn.

Peace, grace, and glory now He gives,
Fair fruits of his unfathomed woes,
And with me in my tent He lives,
The Lamb that died, the Life that rose