Classic Poem

for William Gable

The priest has his temple, I have my store, said the merchant:
I call all the world to my store: here is what the world wants: the world's heart, the world's soul:
Love may be found here, worship may be found here: I sell only that which is righteous before the spirit.
I do not run my store for profit — I run it for love, I run it for service:
Yes: giving the buyers all I have for all they have: paying out each way all of life for all of life:
Making little of what I get, making everything of what I give —
Asking here the questions of the soul and answering them right,
Testing here the value of salvation and disposing of it for what it is worth
I am only a storekeeper? — you are only a priest? Well, what of that?
You open your bible, I open my ledger: maybe my report is as good as yours:
Maybe I keep my store cleaner than you keep your church — maybe — maybe:
Look carefully to your church: sweep it out every day several times: dont let the dust gather on your religion.
I will make my store so noble you will have to move sharp to outbid me with the people:
I will talk such divine stuff for every day you will have to do wonders for your Sunday to hold its own:
I will not say things against you: I do not need to: you are saying so many of them yourself in your silences:
I will not argue with the people to turn the tide towards my doors:
I will build my store so near the people's need the stream will normally flow my way,
So that the people when they say religion will not think of the church but of the store,
So that the people when the children are born or the old folks pass away will rock the cradle and lay out the dead in the store:
The store, the natural assembly place of the people — the people once the customers who have become the brotherhood:
The inspired store, the depot of plenty, responding without stint to the cries of those who have fallen behind:
The store, the impartial mediator, the treasury of reward, the granary of foods for hungers of the seen and the unseen.
You try life out in the temple, I in the store: God knows which is best:
The store is as proud an opportunity as the temple: the church may profane its opportunity, the store may make its opportunity holy.
What can be more right in heaven and earth than treating people on the square?
Sometimes I think it is not goods I sell at all — the things we eat and wear:
Sometimes I think it is love — just love: that everything that goes out is love and that every cent that comes back is just more love.
I say that selling goods may be just as significant as preaching sermons.
They call the church sacred and the store secular: but that depends: I dont go much on epithets:
The store may sell honest goods, the church may preach dishonest sermons:
I say I am tired of having my store invited to your temple —
Now I turn about, now I invite your temple to make itself at home in my store:
Let the love of man for man make itself at home here:
The old watchman who patrols the building all night may be better satisfied with himself than the sexton.
If God thrown out of the churches is welcomed in my store why should a cushion in a front pew be worth as much as a board on my back step?
I do not see why a desk in my store may not be as devoutly dedicated as an altar in a church:
I do not see why the savor of my soap counter may not be as sweet to God as your incense, O priest!
The temple is not a temple anyway: only what I do with it makes it a temple:
And the same with my store: my store is not a store anyway: only what I do with it can make it a store:
And if the temple is turned into a stall in the market its pompous traditions will not save it,
And if the store is turned into a temple of revelation its humble traditions will not damn it,
For that only is close to God which the spirit puts there, temple or store.

The priest has his temple, I have my store, said the merchant.