Uncle Isaac

I didn't know him. He died long before I was born. He was my father's uncle - Isaac. Yet from his poetry I know him, and I can't help but love him. They were primitive Baptists - and yet from this I poem I know he was a dear brother in Christ:

My Dad, how I have missed him,
In all these sixty years.
His company and counsel
In all my hopes and fears.

I remember well one evening
When I was in distress
And thought my lost condition
I must to him confess.
Expecting when he heard me
He would give me up as lost
And think I was another
Deceiver he had crossed.

But when I heard his answer
To my very great surprise
He seemed to think my troubles
Were linked with Christian ties.
Christ, said he, came to seek and
To save that which was lost,
To heal the broken-hearted,
The weak and tempest-tossed.

Whene'er one's lost condition
Is openly confessed
It shows some revelation
Of God that is expressed.
To look alone to Christ is
To look away from self;
This is the Gospel lesson
My Father used to tell.

Daddy, dear old Daddy,
Affections, how they bind!
His sayings, how they linger
And dwell within my mind!
The hope that God has given
Most highly do I prize
That I may meet my father
Beyond the vaulted skies.