TRUTH.

Sing, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long,May find a muse to grace it with a song),By what unseen and unsuspected artsThe serpent Error twines round human hearts;Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades,That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades,The poisonous, black, insinuating wormSuccessfully conceals her loathsome form.Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine,Counsel and caution from a voice like mine!Truths, that the theorist could never reach,And observation taught me, I would teach.Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills,Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,Can trace her mazy windings to their end;Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,Falls soporific on the listless ear;Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they displayShines as it runs, but, grasp'd at, slips away.Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,Free in his will to choose or to refuse,Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,Say, to what bar amenable were man?With nought in charge he could betray no trust:And, if he fell, would fall because he must;If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,His recompence in both unjust alike.Divine authority within his breastBrings every thought, word, action, to the test;Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.Heaven from above, and conscience from within,Cries in his startled ear—Abstain from sin!The world around solicits his desire,And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire;While, all his purposes and steps to guard,Peace follows virtue as its sure reward;And pleasure brings as surely in her trainRemorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain.Man, thus endued with an elective voice,Must be supplied with objects of his choice,Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight,Or present or in prospect, meet his sight:Those open on the spot their honeyed store;These call him loudly to pursuit of more.His unexhausted mine the sordid viceAvarice shows, and virtue is the price.Here various motives his ambition raise—Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise;There beauty wooes him with expanded arms;E'en bacchanalian madness has its charms.Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refinedMight well alarm the most unguarded mind,Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth,Or lead him devious from the path of truth;Hourly allurements on his passions press,Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess.Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air!O what a dying, dying close was there!'Tis harmony, from yon sequester'd bower.Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour!Long ere the charioteer of day had runHis morning course the enchantment was begun;And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent,That virtue points to? Can a life thus spentLead to the bliss she promises the wise,Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?Ye devotees to your adored employ,Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy,Love makes the music of the blest above,Heaven's harmony is universal love;And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined,And lenient as soft opiates to the mind,Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind.Grey dawn appears; the sportsman and his trainSpeckle the bosom of the distant plain;'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs;Save that his scent is less acute than theirs,For persevering chase, and headlong leaps,True beagle as the stanchest hound he keeps.Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene,He takes offence, and wonders what you mean;The joy the danger and the toil o'erpays—'Tis exercise, and health, and length of days.Again impetuous to the field he flies;Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies;Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brings him home,Unmiss'd but by his dogs and by his groom.Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place,Lights of the world and stars of human race;But, if eccentric ye forsake your sphere,Prodigies ominous and view'd with fear:The comet's baneful influence is a dream;Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme.What then! are appetites and lusts laid downWith the same ease that man puts on his gown?Will avarice and concupiscence give place,Charm'd by the sounds—Your Reverence, or your Grace?No. But his own engagement binds him fast;Or, if it does not, brands him to the lastWhat atheists call him—a designing knave,A mere church juggler, hypocrite and slave.Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest,A cassock'd huntsman and a fiddling priest!He from Italian songsters takes his cue:Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too.He takes the field. The master of the packCries—Well done, saint! and claps him on the back.Is this the path of sanctity? Is thisTo stand a waymark on the road to bliss?Himself a wanderer from the narrow way,His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet,Send your dishonour'd gown to Monmouth-street!The sacred function in your hands is made—Sad sacrilege—no function, but a trade!Occiduus is a pastor of renown,When he has pray'd and preach'd the sabbath down,With wire and catgut he concludes the day,Quavering and semiquavering care away.The full concerto swells upon your ear;All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swearThe Babylonian tyrant with a nodHad summon'd them to serve his golden god.So well that thought the employment seems to suit,Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute.O fie! 'tis evangelical and pure:Observe each face, how sober and demure!Ecstacy sets her stamp on every mien;Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen.Still I insist, though music heretoforeHas charm'd me much (not e'en Occiduus more),Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meetFor sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.Will not the sickliest sheep of every flockResort to this example as a rock;There stand, and justify the foul abuseOf sabbath hours with plausible excuse;If apostolic gravity be freeTo play the fool on Sundays, why not we?If he the tinkling harpsichord regardsAs inoffensive, what offence in cards?Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay!Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.O Italy!—Thy sabbaths will be soonOur sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon.Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been,God's worship and the mountebank between.What says the prophet? Let that day be blestWith holiness and consecrated rest.Pastime and business, both it should exclude,And bar the door the moment they intrude;Nobly distinguished above all the sixBy deeds in which the world must never mix.Hear him again. He calls it a delight,A day of luxury observed aright,When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome guest,Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.But triflers are engaged and cannot come;Their answer to the call is—Not at home.O the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again!Cards, with what rapture, and the polish'd die,The yawning chasm of indolence supply!Then to the dance, and make the sober moonWitness of joys that shun the sight of noon.Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,The snug close party, or the splendid hall,Where Night, down stooping from her ebon throne,Views constellations brighter than her own.'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,The balm of care, Elysium of the mind.Innocent! Oh, if venerable TimeSlain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime,Then, with his silver beard and magic wand,Let Comus rise archbishop of the land;Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe,Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.Rufillus, exquisitely form'd by rule,Not of the moral but the dancing school,Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a toneAs tragical as others at his own.He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,Then kill a constable, and drink five more;But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,And has the ladies' etiquette by heart.Go, fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, pleadYour cause before a bar you little dread;But know, the law that bids the drunkard dieIs far too just to pass the trifler by.Both baby-featured, and of infant size,View'd from a distance, and with heedless eyes,Folly and innocence are so alike,The difference, though essential, fails to strike.Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare,A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect,Delights us, by engaging our respect.Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet,Receives from her both appetite and treat;But, if he play the glutton and exceed,His benefactress blushes at the deed.For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.Daniel ate pulse by choice—example rare!Heaven bless'd the youth, and made him fresh and fair.Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:He snuffs far off the anticipated joy;Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ;Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat,Oh, nauseous!—an emetic for a whet!Will Providence o'erlook the wasted good?Temperance were no virtue if he could.That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,Are hurtful, is a truth confess'd by all.And some, that seem to threaten virtue lessStill hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess.Is man then only for his torment placedThe centre of delights he may not taste?Like fabled Tantalus, condemn'd to hearThe precious stream still purling in his ear,Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curstWith prohibition and perpetual thirst?No, wrangler—destitute of shame and sense,The precept, that enjoins him abstinence,Forbids him none but the licentious joy,Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laidIn every bosom where her nest is made,Hatch'd by the beams of truth, denies him rest,And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame,Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame?All these belong to virtue, and all proveThat virtue has a title to your love.Have you no touch of pity, that the poorStand starved at your inhospitable door?Or if yourself, too scantily supplied,Need help, let honest industry provide.Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart:These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern wasteSent us a wind to parch us at a blast?Can British Paradise no scenes affordTo please her sated and indifferent lord?Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments runQuite to the lees? And has religion none?Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie,And judge you from the kennel and the stye.Delights like these, ye sensual and profane,Ye are bid, begg'd, besought, to entertain;Call'd to these crystal streams, do ye turn offObscene to swill and swallow at a trough?Envy the beast, then, on whom Heaven bestowsYour pleasures, with no curses at the close.Pleasure admitted in undue degreeEnslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juiceUnnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,And woman, lovely woman, does the same.The heart, surrender'd to the ruling powerOf some ungovern'd passion every hour,Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway,And all their deep impressions, wear away;So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd,Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide,In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,Then welcome errors, of whatever size,To justify it by a thousand lies.As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;So sophistry cleaves close to and protectsSin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care,First wish to be imposed on, and then are.And lest the fulsome artifice should fail,Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.Not more industrious are the just and trueTo give to Virtue what is Virtue's due—The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,And call her charms to public notice forth—Than Vice's mean and disingenuous raceTo hide the shocking features of her face.Her form with dress and lotion they repair;Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.The sacred implement I now employMight prove a mischief, or at best a toy;A trifle, if it move but to amuse;But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,Worse than a poniard in the basest hand,It stabs at once the morals of a land.Ye writers of what none with safety reads,Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads;Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,Snivelling and drivelling folly without end;Whose corresponding misses fill the reamWith sentimental frippery and dream,Caught in a delicate soft silken netBy some lewd earl, or rake-hell baronet:Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence,Steal to the closet of young innocence,And teach her, inexperienced yet and green,To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen;Who, kindling a combustion of desire,With some cold moral think to quench the fire;Though all your engineering proves in vainThe dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again:Oh that a verse had power, and could commandFar, far away, these flesh-flies of the land,Who fasten without mercy on the fair,And suck, and leave a craving maggot there!Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale,And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil;Such writers, and such readers, owe the gustAnd relish of their pleasure all to lust.But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in viewA quarry more important still than you;Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away,Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey.Petronius! all the muses weep for thee;But every tear shall scald thy memory:The graces too, while Virtue at their shrineLay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast,Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and cursed the priest.Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth,Graybeard corrupter of our listening youth,To purge and skim away the filth of vice,That so refined it might the more entice,Then pour it on the morals of thy son,To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own!Now, while the poison all high life pervades,Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades,One, and one only, charged with deep regret,That thy worst part, thy principles, live yet;One sad epistle thence may cure mankindOf the plague spread by bundles left behind.'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears,Our most important are our earliest years;The mind, impressible and soft, with easeImbibes and copies what she hears and sees,And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clueThat Education gives her, false or true.Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;And without discipline the favourite child,Like a neglected forester, runs wild.But we, as if good qualities would growSpontaneous, take but little pains to sow:We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek;Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;And having done, we think, the best we can,Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;And thence with all convenient speed to Rome,With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day;With memorandum book for every town,And every post, and where the chaise broke down;His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,With much to learn, but nothing to impart;The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and silly stare,Discover huge cathedrals built with stone,And steeples towering high, much like our own;But show peculiar light by many a grinAt popish practices observed within.Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abbéRemarks two loiterers that have lost their way;And, being always primed with politesseFor men of their appearance and address,With much compassion undertakes the taskTo tell them more than they have wit to ask;Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,Such as, when legible, were never read,But being canker'd now and half worn out,Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;Some headless hero, or some Cæsar shows—Defective only in his Roman nose;Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans,Models of Herculanum pots and pans;And sells them medals, which, if neither rareNor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.Strange the recital! from whatever causeHis great improvement and new lights he draws,The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more,But teems with powers he never felt before;Whether increased momentum, and the forceWith which from clime to clime he sped his course,(As axles sometimes kindle as they go,)Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;Or whether clearer skies and softer air,That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,Unfolded genially, and spread the man;Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,By shrugs and strange contortions of his face,How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam,Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.Accomplishments have taken virtue's place,And wisdom falls before exterior grace:We slight the precious kernel of the stone,And toil to polish its rough coat alone.A just deportment, manners graced with ease,Elegant phrase, and figure form'd to please,Are qualities that seem to comprehendWhatever parents, guardians, schools, intend;Hence an unfurnish'd and a listless mind,Though busy, trifling; empty, though refined;Hence all that interferes, and dares to clashWith indolence and luxury, is trash;While learning, once the man's exclusive pride,Seems verging fast towards the female side.Learning itself, received into a mindBy nature weak, or viciously inclined,Serves but to lead philosophers astray,Where children would with ease discern the way.And of all arts sagacious dupes invent,To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent,The worst is—Scripture warp'd from its intent.The carriage bowls along, and all are pleasedIf Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased;But if the rogue be gone a cup too far,Left out his linchpin, or forgot his tar,It suffers interruption and delay,And meets with hindrance in the smoothest way.When some hypothesis absurd and vainHas fill'd with all its fumes a critic's brain,The text that sorts not with his darling whim,Though plain to others, is obscure to him.The will made subject to a lawless force,All is irregular, and out of course;And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way,Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday.A critic on the sacred book should beCandid and learn'd, dispassionate and free;Free from the wayward bias bigots feel,From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal;But above all, (or let the wretch refrain,Nor touch the page he cannot but profane,)Free from the domineering power of lust;A lewd interpreter is never just.How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,Thou god of our idolatry, the Press?By thee religion, liberty, and laws,Exert their influence and advance their cause:By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell,Diffused, make Earth the vestibule of Hell;Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise,Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;Like Eden's dread probationary tree,Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!No wild enthusiast ever yet could restTill half mankind were like himself possess'd.Philosophers, who darken and put outEternal truth by everlasting doubt;Church quacks, with passions under no command,Who fill the world with doctrines contraband,Discoverers of they know not what, confinedWithin no bounds—the blind that lead the blind;To streams of popular opinion drawn,Deposit in those shallows all their spawn.The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around,Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound.Scorn'd by the nobler tenants of the flood,Minnows and gudgeons gorge the unwholesome food.The propagated myriads spread so fast,E'en Leuwenhoeck himself would stand aghast,Employ'd to calculate the enormous sum,And own his crab-computing powers o'ercome.Is this hyperbole? The world well known,Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one.Fresh confidence the speculatist takesFrom every hair-brain'd proselyte he makes;And therefore prints: himself but half deceived,Till others have the soothing tale believed.Hence comment after comment, spun as fineAs bloated spiders draw the flimsy line.Hence the same word that bids our lusts obeyIs misapplied to sanctify their sway.If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend,Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend;If languages and copies all cry, No—Somebody proved it centuries ago.Like trout pursued, the critic in despairDarts to the mud, and finds his safety there:Women, whom custom has forbid to flyThe scholar's pitch, (the scholar best knows why,)With all the simple and unletter'd poor,Admire his learning, and almost adore.Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong,With such fine words familiar to his tongue.Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause,I should deserve to forfeit all applause)Whatever shocks or gives the least offenceTo virtue, delicacy, truth, or sense,(Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide,)Nor has, nor can have, Scripture on its side.None but an author knows an author's cares,Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.Committed once into the public arms,The baby seems to smile with added charms.Like something precious ventured far from shore,'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more.He views it with complacency supreme,Solicits kind attention to his dream;And daily, more enamour'd of the cheat,Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear deceit.So one, whose story serves at least to showMen loved their own productions long ago,Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife,Nor rested till the gods had given it life.If some mere driveller suck the sugar'd fib,One that still needs his leading string and bib,And praise his genius, he is soon repaidIn praise applied to the same part—his head;For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true,Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.Patient of contradiction as a child,Affable, humble, diffident, and mild;Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke;Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock.The creature is so sure to kick and bite,A muleteer's the man to set him right.First Appetite enlists him Truth's sworn foe,Then obstinate Self-will confirms him so.Tell him he wanders; that his error leadsTo fatal ills; that, though the path he treadsBe flowery, and he see no cause of fear,Death and the pains of hell attend him there:In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride,He has no hearing on the prudent side.His still refuted quirks he still repeats;New raised objections with new quibbles meets;Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends,He dies disputing, and the contest ends—But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind,Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind.Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill;Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will;And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied,First put it out, then take it for a guide.Halting on crutches of unequal size,One leg by truth supported, one by lies,They sidle to the goal with awkward pace,Secure of nothing—but to lose the race.Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,And these reciprocally those again.The mind and conduct mutually imprintAnd stamp their image in each other's mint;Each, sire and dam of an infernal race,Begetting and conceiving all that's base.None sends his arrow to the mark in view,Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue.For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing,Or when it first forsakes the elastic string,It err but little from the intended line,It falls at last far wide of his design;So he who seeks a mansion in the sky,Must watch his purpose with a stedfast eye;That prize belongs to none but the sincere,The least obliquity is fatal here.With caution taste the sweet Circean cup;He that sips often, at last drinks it up.Habits are soon assumed; but when we striveTo strip them off, 'tis being flay'd alive.Call'd to the temple of impure delight,He that abstains, and he alone, does right.If a wish wander that way, call it home;He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.But if you pass the threshold, you are caught;Die then, if power Almighty save you not.There hardening by degrees, till double steel'd,Take leave of nature's God, and God reveal'd;Then laugh at all you trembled at before;And, joining the freethinkers' brutal roar,Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense—That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense.If clemency revolted by abuseBe damnable, then damn'd without excuse.Some dream that they can silence, when they will,The storm of passion, and say, Peace, be still:But "Thus far and no farther," when address'dTo the wild wave, or wilder human breast,Implies authority that never can,That never ought to be the lot of man.But, muse, forbear; long flights forebode a fall;Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all.Hear the just law—the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he that will be cheated to the last,Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast.But if the wanderer his mistake discern,Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return,Bewilder'd once, must he bewail his lossFor ever and for ever? No—the cross!There and there only (though the deist rave,And atheist, if Earth bear so base a slave);There and there only is the power to save.There no delusive hope invites despair;No mockery meets you, no deception there.The spells and charms, that blinded you before,All vanish there, and fascinate no more.I am no preacher, let this hint suffice—The cross once seen is death to every vice;Else He that hung there suffer'd all his pain,Bled, groan'd, and agonized, and died, in vain.TRUTH.Pensantur trutinâ.Hor.lib. ii. Ep. 1.THE ARGUMENT.The pursuit of error leads to destruction—Grace leads the right way—Its direction despised—The self-sufficient Pharisee compared with the peacock—The pheasant compared with the Christian—Heaven abhors affected sanctity—The hermit and his penances—The self-torturing Bramin—Pride the ruling principle of both—Picture of a sanctimonious prude—Picture of a saint—Freedom of a Christian—Importance of motives, illustrated by the conduct of two servants—The traveller overtaken by a storm likened to the sinner dreading the vengeance of the Almighty—Dangerous state of those who are just in their own conceit—The last moments of the infidel—Content of the ignorant but believing cottager—The rich, the wise, and the great, neglect the means of winning heaven—Poverty the best soil for religion—What man really is, and what in his own esteem—Unbelief often terminates in suicide—Scripture the only cure of woe—Pride the passion most hostile to truth—Danger of slighting the mercy offered by the Gospel—Plea for the virtuous heathen—Commands given by God on Sinai—The judgment-day—Plea of the believer.Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd,His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost,Sees, far as human optics may command,A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land;Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies!Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes,His well-built systems, philosophic dreams;Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell!He reads his sentence at the flames of hell.Hard lot of man—to toil for the rewardOf virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore hard?—He that would win the race must guide his horseObedient to the customs of the course;Else, though unequall'd to the goal he flies,A meaner than himself shall gain the prize.Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,Take it and perish; but restrain your tongue;Charge not, with light sufficient and left free,Your wilful suicide on God's decree.Oh how unlike the complex works of man,Heav'n's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan!No meretricious graces to beguile,No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;From ostentation, as from weakness, free,It stands like the cerulian arch we see,Majestic in its own simplicity.Inscribed above the portal, from afarConspicuous as the brightness of a star,Legible only by the light they give,Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE, AND LIVE.Too many, shock'd at what should charm them most,Despise the plain direction, and are lost.Heaven on such terms! (they cry with proud disdain)Incredible, impossible, and vain!—Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey;And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way.These are the sober, in whose cooler brainsSome thought of immortality remains;The rest too busy or too gay to waitOn the sad theme, their everlasting state,Sport for a day, and perish in a night;The foam upon the waters not so light.Who judged the Pharisee! What odious causeExposed him to the vengeance of the laws?Had he seduced a virgin, wrong'd a friend,Or stabb'd a man to serve some private end?Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he strayFrom the strict duties of the sacred day?Sit long and late at the carousing board?(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.)No—the man's morals were exact. What then?'Twas his ambition to be seen of men;His virtues were his pride; and that one viceMade all his virtues gewgaws of no price;He wore them as fine trappings for a show,A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau.The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see—Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he!Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfoldHis radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:He treads as if, some solemn music near,His measured step were govern'd by his ear;And seems to say—Ye meaner fowl give place;I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mienTo the close copse or far sequester'd green,And shines without desiring to be seen.The plea of works, as arrogant and vain,Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain;Not more affronted by avowed neglect,Than by the mere dissembler's feign'd respect.What is all righteousness that men devise?What—but a sordid bargain for the skies?But Christ as soon would abdicate his own,As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.His dwelling a recess in some rude rock;Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock;In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd,Girt with a bell-rope that the pope has bless'd;Adust with stripes told out for every crime,And sore tormented, long before his time;His prayer preferr'd to saints that cannot aid,His praise postponed, and never to be paid;See the sage hermit, by mankind admired,With all that bigotry adopts inspired,Wearing out life in his religious whim,Till his religious whimsy wears out him.His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow'd,You think him humble—God accounts him proud.High in demand, though lowly in pretence,Of all his conduct this the genuine sense—My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,Have purchased heaven, and proved my title good.Turn eastward now, and fancy shall applyTo your weak sight her telescopic eye.The bramin kindles on his own bare headThe sacred fire, self-torturing his trade!His voluntary pains, severe and long,Would give a barbarous air to British song;No grand inquisitor could worse invent,Than he contrives to suffer well content.Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you.Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name?I say the bramin has the fairer claim.If sufferings scripture nowhere recommends,Devised by self, to answer selfish ends,Give saintship, then all Europe must agreeTen starveling hermits suffer less than he.The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear,And prejudice have left a passage clear)Pride has attained a most luxuriant growth,And poison'd every virtue in them both.Pride may be pamper'd while the flesh grows lean;Humility may clothe an English dean;That grace was Cowper's—his, confess'd by all—Though placed in golden Durham's second stall.Not all the plenty of a bishop's board,His palace, and his lacqueys, and "My Lord,"More nourish pride, that condescending vice,Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice;It thrives in misery, and abundant grows:In misery fools upon themselves impose.But why before us protestants produceAn Indian mystic or a French recluse?Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear,Reform'd and well-instructed? You shall hear.Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features showShe might be young some forty years ago,Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips,Her head erect, her fan upon her lips,Her eyebrows arched, her eyes both gone astrayTo watch yon amorous couple in their play,With bony and unkerchief'd neck defiesThe rude inclemency of wintry skies,And sails with lappet head and mincing airsDuly at clink of bell to morning prayers.To thrift and parsimony much inclined,She yet allows herself that boy behind;The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,With slipshod heels and dewdrop at his nose,His predecessor's coat advanced to wear,Which future pages yet are doom'd to share,Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm,And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.She, half an angel in her own account,Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount,Though not a grace appears on strictest search,But that she fasts, anditem, goes to church.Conscious of age, she recollects her youth,And tells, not always with an eye to truth,Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he came,Scrawl'd upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name;Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay,And drank the little bumper every day.Of temper as envenom'd as an asp,Censorious, and her every word a wasp;In faithful memory she records the crimesOr real, or fictitious, of the times;Laughs at the reputations she has torn,And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn.Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride,Of malice fed while flesh is mortified:Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers,Where hermits and where bramins meet with theirs;Your portion is with them.—Nay, never frown,But, if you please, some fathoms lower down.Artist, attend—your brushes and your paint—Produce them—take a chair—now draw a saint.Oh sorrowful and sad! the streaming tearsChannel her cheeks—a Niobe appears!Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away—True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groanFor others' woes, but smiles upon her own.What purpose has the King of saints in view?Why falls the gospel like a gracious dew?To call up plenty from the teeming earth,Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth?Is it that Adam's offspring may be savedFrom servile fear, or be the more enslaved?To loose the links that gall'd mankind before,Or bind them faster on, and add still more?The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove,Or, if a chain, the golden one of love:No fear attends to quench his glowing fires,What fear he feels his gratitude inspires.Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought,Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.His Master's interest and his own combinedPrompt every movement of his heart and mind:Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince,His freedom is the freedom of a prince.Man's obligations infinite, of courseHis life should prove that he perceives their force;His utmost he can render is but small—The principle and motive all in all.You have two servants—Tom, an arch, sly rogue,From top to toe the Geta now in vogue,Genteel in figure, easy in address,Moves without noise, and swift as an express,Reports a message with a pleasing grace,Expert in all the duties of his place;Say, on what hinge does his obedience move?Has he a world of gratitude and love?No, not a spark—'tis all mere sharper's play;He likes your house, your housemaid, and your pay;Reduce his wages, or get rid of her,Tom quits you, with—Your most obedient, sir.The dinner served, Charles takes his usual stand,Watches your eye, anticipates command;Sighs, if perhaps your appetite should fail;And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale;Consults all day your interest and your ease,Richly rewarded if he can but please;And, proud to make his firm attachment known,To save your life would nobly risk his own.Now which stands highest in your serious thought?Charles, without doubt, say you—and so he ought;One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds,Excels ten thousand mercenary deeds.Thus Heaven approves as honest and sincereThe work of generous love and filial fear;But with averted eyes the omniscient JudgeScorns the base hireling and the slavish drudge.Where dwell these matchless saints? old Curio cries.E'en at your side, sir, and before your eyes,The favour'd few—the enthusiasts you despise.And, pleased at heart because on holy ground,Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found,Reproach a people with his single fall,And cast his filthy raiment at them all.Attend! an apt similitude shall showWhence springs the conduct that offends you so.See where it smokes along the sounding plain,Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain,Peal upon peal redoubling all around,Shakes it again and faster to the ground;Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play,Swift beyond thought the lightnings dart away.Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed,And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed;Now drench'd throughout, and hopeless of his case,He drops the rein, and leaves him to his pace.Suppose, unlook'd for in a scene so rude,Long hid by interposing hill or wood,Some mansion, neat and elegantly dress'd,By some kind hospitable heart possess'd,Offer him warmth, security, and rest;Think with what pleasure, safe, and at his ease,He hears the tempest howling in the trees;What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ,While danger past is turn'd to present joy.So fares it with the sinner, when he feelsA growing dread of vengeance at his heels:His conscience like a glassy lake before,Lash'd into foaming waves, begins to roar;The law, grown clamorous, though silent long,Arraigns him, charges him with every wrong—Asserts the right of his offended Lord,And death, or restitution, is the word:The last impossible, he fears the first,And, having well deserved, expects the worst.Then welcome refuge and a peaceful home;Oh for a shelter from the wrath to come!Crush me, ye rocks; ye falling mountains, hide,Or bury me in ocean's angry tide!—The scrutiny of those all-seeing eyesI dare not—And you need not, God replies;The remedy you want I freely give;The book shall teach you—read, believe, and live!'Tis done—the raging storm is heard no more,Mercy receives him on her peaceful shore:And Justice, guardian of the dread command,Drops the red vengeance from his willing hand.A soul redeem'd demands a life of praise;Hence the complexion of his future days,Hence a demeanour holy and unspeck'd,And the world's hatred, as its sure effect.Some lead a life unblameable and just,Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust:They never sin—or if (as all offend)Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,The poor are near at hand, the charge is small,A slight gratuity atones for all.For though the pope has lost his interest here,And pardons are not sold as once they were,No papist more desirous to compound,Than some grave sinners upon English ground.That plea refuted, other quirks they seek—Mercy is infinite, and man is weak;The future shall obliterate the past,And heaven, no doubt, shall be their home at last.Come, then—a still, small whisper in your ear—He has no hope who never had a fear;And he that never doubted of his state,He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late.The path to bliss abounds with many a snare;Learning is one, and wit, however rare.The Frenchman, first in literary fame,(Mention him, if you please. Voltaire?—The same)With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died;The Scripture was his jest book, whence he drewBon-motsto gall the Christian and the Jew;An infidel in health, but what when sick?Oh—then a text would touch him at the quick;View him at Paris in his last career,Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere;Exalted on his pedestal of pride,And fumed with frankincense on every side,He begs their flattery with his latest breath,And, smother'd in't at last, is praised to death!Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,Pillow and bobbins all her little store;Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,Shuffling her threads about the live-long day,Just earns a scanty pittance, and at nightLies down secure, her heart and pocket light;She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,Has little understanding, and no wit,Receives no praise; but though her lot be such,(Toilsome and indigent,) she renders much;Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,Her title to a treasure in the skies.Oh, happy peasant! Oh, unhappy bard!His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;He praised perhaps for ages yet to come,She never heard of half a mile from home:He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers,She, safe in the simplicity of hers.Not many wise, rich, noble, or profoundIn science win one inch of heavenly ground.And is it not a mortifying thoughtThe poor should gain it, and the rich should not?No—the voluptuaries, who ne'er forgetOne pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret;Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer,Prayer would add faith, and faith would fix them there.Not that the Former of us all in this,Or aught he does, is govern'd by caprice;The supposition is replete with sin,And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in.Not so—the silver trumpet's heavenly callSounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all:Kings are invited, and would kings obey,No slaves on earth more welcome were than they;But royalty, nobility, and state,Are such a dead preponderating weight,That endless bliss, (how strange soe'er it seem,)In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam.'Tis open, and ye cannot enter—why?Because ye will not, Conyers would reply—And he says much that many may disputeAnd cavil at with ease, but none refute.Oh, bless'd effect of penury and want,The seed sown there, how vigorous is the plant!No soil like poverty for growth divine,As leanest land supplies the richest wine.Earth gives too little, giving only bread,To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head:To them the sounding jargon of the schoolsSeems what it is—a cap and bells for fools:The light they walk by, kindled from above,Shows them the shortest way to life and love:They, strangers to the controversial field,Where deists, always foil'd, yet scorn to yield,And never check'd by what impedes the wise,Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize.Envy, ye great, the dull unletter'd small:Ye have much cause for envy—but not all.We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,And one who wears a coronet and prays;Like gleanings of an olive tree, they showHere and there one upon the topmost bough.How readily, upon the Gospel plan,That question has its answer—What is man?Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch;An instrument, whose chords, upon the stretch,And strain'd to the last screw that he can bear,Yield only discord in his Maker's ear:Once the blest residence of truth divine,Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine,Where, in his own oracular abode,Dwelt visibly the light-creating God;But made long since, like Babylon of old,A den of mischiefs never to be told:And she, once mistress of the realms around,Now scattered wide and no where to be found,As soon shall rise and re-ascend the throne,By native power and energy her own,As nature, at her own peculiar cost,Restore to man the glories he has lost.Go—bid the winter cease to chill the year,Replace the wandering comet in his sphere,Then boast (but wait for that unhoped for hour)The self-restoring arm of human power.But what is man in his own proud esteem?Hear him—himself the poet and the theme:A monarch clothed with majesty and awe,His mind his kingdom, and his will his law;Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes,Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies,Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod,And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a God!So sings he, charm'd with his own mind and form,The song magnificent—the theme a worm!Himself so much the source of his delight,His Maker has no beauty in his sight.See where he sits, contemplative and fix'd,Pleasure and wonder in his features mix'd,His passions tamed and all at his control,How perfect the composure of his soul!Complacency has breathed a gentle galeO'er all his thoughts, and swell'd his easy sail:His books well trimm'd, and in the gayest style,Like regimental coxcombs, rank and file,Adorn his intellects as well as shelves,And teach him notions splendid as themselves:The Bible only stands neglected there,Though that of all most worthy of his care;And, like an infant troublesome awake,Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake.What shall the man deserve of human kind,Whose happy skill and industry combinedShall prove (what argument could never yet)The Bible an imposture and a cheat?The praises of the libertine profess'd,The worst of men, and curses of the best.Where should the living, weeping o'er his woes;The dying, trembling at the awful close;Where the betray'd, forsaken, and oppress'd;The thousands whom the world forbids to rest;Where should they find, (those comforts at an end,The Scripture yields,) or hope to find, a friend?Sorrow might muse herself to madness then,And, seeking exile from the sight of men,Bury herself in solitude profound,Grow frantic with her pangs, and bite the ground.Thus often Unbelief, grown sick of life,Flies to the tempting pool, or felon knife.The jury meet, the coroner is short,And lunacy the verdict of the court.Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known,Such lunacy is ignorance alone;They knew not, what some bishops may not know,That Scripture is the only cure of woe.That field of promise how it flings abroadIts odour o'er the Christian's thorny road!The soul, reposing on assured relief,Feels herself happy amidst all her grief,Forgets her labour as she toils along,Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song.But the same word, that, like the polish'd share,Ploughs up the roots of a believer's care,Kills too the flowery weeds, where'er they grow,That bind the sinner's Bacchanalian brow.Oh, that unwelcome voice of heavenly love,Sad messenger of mercy from above!How does it grate upon his thankless ear,Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear!His will and judgment at continual strife,That civil war embitters all his life;In vain he points his powers against the skies,In vain he closes or averts his eyes,Truth will intrude—she bids him yet beware;And shakes the sceptic in the scorner's chair.Though various foes against the Truth combine,Pride above all opposes her design;Pride, of a growth superior to the rest,The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest,Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage,Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage.And is the soul indeed so lost?—she cries,Fallen from her glory, and too weak to rise?Torpid and dull, beneath a frozen zone,Has she no spark that may be deem'd her own?Grant her indebted to what zealots callGrace undeserved, yet surely not for all!Some beams of rectitude she yet displays,Some love of virtue, and some power to praise;Can lift herself above corporeal things,And, soaring on her own unborrow'd wings,Possess herself of all that's good or true,Assert the skies, and vindicate her due.Past indiscretion is a venial crime;And if the youth, unmellowed yet by time,Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude,Fruits of a blighted size, austere and crude,Maturer years shall happier stores produce,And meliorate the well-concocted juice.Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal,To Justice she may make her bold appeal;And leave to Mercy, with a tranquil mind,The worthless and unfruitful of mankind.Hear then how Mercy, slighted and defied,Retorts the affront against the crown of pride.Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorr'd,And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.The atonement a Redeemer's love has wroughtIs not for you—the righteous need it not.Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets,The worn-out nuisance of the public streets,Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn?The gracious shower, unlimited and free,Shall fall on her, when Heaven denies it thee.Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift—That man is dead in sin, and life a gift.Is virtue, then, unless of Christian growth,Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe,For ignorance of what they could not know?—That speech betrays at once a bigot's tongue,Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong!Truly, not I—the partial light men have,My creed persuades me, well employ'd, may save;While he that scorns the noon-day beam, perverse,Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mindLeft sensuality and dross behind,Possess, for me, their undisputed lot,And take, unenvied, the reward they sought.But still in virtue of a Saviour's plea,Not blind by choice, but destined not to see.Their fortitude and wisdom were a flameCelestial, though they knew not whence it came,Derived from the same source of light and grace,That guides the Christian in his swifter race;Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law:That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,Led them, however faltering, faint, and slow,From what they knew to what they wish'd to know.But let not him that shares a brighter dayTraduce the splendour of a noontide ray,Prefer the twilight of a darker time,And deem his base stupidity no crime;The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies,And sinks, while favour'd with the means to rise,Shall find them rated at their full amount,The good he scorn'd all carried to account.Marshalling all his terrors as he came,Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring flame,From Sinai's top Jehovah gave the law—Life for obedience—death for every flaw.When the great Sovereign would his will express,He gives a perfect rule, what can he less?And guards it with a sanction as severeAs vengeance can inflict, or sinners fear:Else his own glorious rights he would disclaim,And man might safely trifle with his name.He bids him glow with unremitting loveTo all on earth, and to himself above;Condemns the injurious deed, the slanderous tongue,The thought that meditates a brother's wrong:Brings not alone the more conspicuous part,His conduct, to the test, but tries his heart.Hark! universal nature shook and groan'd,'Twas the last trumpet—see the Judge enthroned:Rouse all your courage at your utmost need,Now summon every virtue, stand and plead.What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more?That self-renouncing wisdom, learn'd before,Had shed immortal glories on your brow,That all your virtues cannot purchase now.All joy to the believer! He can speak—Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek.Since the dear hour that brought me to thy footAnd cut up all my follies by the root,I never trusted in an arm but thine,Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine:My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled,Were but the feeble efforts of a child;Howe'er performed, it was their brightest part,That they proceeded from a grateful heart:Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood,Forgive their evil and accept their good:I cast them at thy feet—my only pleaIs what it was, dependence upon thee:While struggling in the vale of tears below,That never fail'd, nor shall it fail me now.Angelic gratulations rend the skies,Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise,Humility is crown'd, and Faith receives the prize.

Sing, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long,May find a muse to grace it with a song),By what unseen and unsuspected artsThe serpent Error twines round human hearts;Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades,That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades,The poisonous, black, insinuating wormSuccessfully conceals her loathsome form.Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine,Counsel and caution from a voice like mine!Truths, that the theorist could never reach,And observation taught me, I would teach.Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills,Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,Can trace her mazy windings to their end;Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,Falls soporific on the listless ear;Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they displayShines as it runs, but, grasp'd at, slips away.Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,Free in his will to choose or to refuse,Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,Say, to what bar amenable were man?With nought in charge he could betray no trust:And, if he fell, would fall because he must;If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,His recompence in both unjust alike.Divine authority within his breastBrings every thought, word, action, to the test;Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.Heaven from above, and conscience from within,Cries in his startled ear—Abstain from sin!The world around solicits his desire,And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire;While, all his purposes and steps to guard,Peace follows virtue as its sure reward;And pleasure brings as surely in her trainRemorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain.Man, thus endued with an elective voice,Must be supplied with objects of his choice,Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight,Or present or in prospect, meet his sight:Those open on the spot their honeyed store;These call him loudly to pursuit of more.His unexhausted mine the sordid viceAvarice shows, and virtue is the price.Here various motives his ambition raise—Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise;There beauty wooes him with expanded arms;E'en bacchanalian madness has its charms.Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refinedMight well alarm the most unguarded mind,Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth,Or lead him devious from the path of truth;Hourly allurements on his passions press,Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess.Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air!O what a dying, dying close was there!'Tis harmony, from yon sequester'd bower.Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour!Long ere the charioteer of day had runHis morning course the enchantment was begun;And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent,That virtue points to? Can a life thus spentLead to the bliss she promises the wise,Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?Ye devotees to your adored employ,Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy,Love makes the music of the blest above,Heaven's harmony is universal love;And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined,And lenient as soft opiates to the mind,Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind.Grey dawn appears; the sportsman and his trainSpeckle the bosom of the distant plain;'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs;Save that his scent is less acute than theirs,For persevering chase, and headlong leaps,True beagle as the stanchest hound he keeps.Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene,He takes offence, and wonders what you mean;The joy the danger and the toil o'erpays—'Tis exercise, and health, and length of days.Again impetuous to the field he flies;Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies;Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brings him home,Unmiss'd but by his dogs and by his groom.Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place,Lights of the world and stars of human race;But, if eccentric ye forsake your sphere,Prodigies ominous and view'd with fear:The comet's baneful influence is a dream;Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme.What then! are appetites and lusts laid downWith the same ease that man puts on his gown?Will avarice and concupiscence give place,Charm'd by the sounds—Your Reverence, or your Grace?No. But his own engagement binds him fast;Or, if it does not, brands him to the lastWhat atheists call him—a designing knave,A mere church juggler, hypocrite and slave.Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest,A cassock'd huntsman and a fiddling priest!He from Italian songsters takes his cue:Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too.He takes the field. The master of the packCries—Well done, saint! and claps him on the back.Is this the path of sanctity? Is thisTo stand a waymark on the road to bliss?Himself a wanderer from the narrow way,His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet,Send your dishonour'd gown to Monmouth-street!The sacred function in your hands is made—Sad sacrilege—no function, but a trade!Occiduus is a pastor of renown,When he has pray'd and preach'd the sabbath down,With wire and catgut he concludes the day,Quavering and semiquavering care away.The full concerto swells upon your ear;All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swearThe Babylonian tyrant with a nodHad summon'd them to serve his golden god.So well that thought the employment seems to suit,Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute.O fie! 'tis evangelical and pure:Observe each face, how sober and demure!Ecstacy sets her stamp on every mien;Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen.Still I insist, though music heretoforeHas charm'd me much (not e'en Occiduus more),Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meetFor sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.Will not the sickliest sheep of every flockResort to this example as a rock;There stand, and justify the foul abuseOf sabbath hours with plausible excuse;If apostolic gravity be freeTo play the fool on Sundays, why not we?If he the tinkling harpsichord regardsAs inoffensive, what offence in cards?Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay!Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.O Italy!—Thy sabbaths will be soonOur sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon.Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been,God's worship and the mountebank between.What says the prophet? Let that day be blestWith holiness and consecrated rest.Pastime and business, both it should exclude,And bar the door the moment they intrude;Nobly distinguished above all the sixBy deeds in which the world must never mix.Hear him again. He calls it a delight,A day of luxury observed aright,When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome guest,Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.But triflers are engaged and cannot come;Their answer to the call is—Not at home.O the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again!Cards, with what rapture, and the polish'd die,The yawning chasm of indolence supply!Then to the dance, and make the sober moonWitness of joys that shun the sight of noon.Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,The snug close party, or the splendid hall,Where Night, down stooping from her ebon throne,Views constellations brighter than her own.'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,The balm of care, Elysium of the mind.Innocent! Oh, if venerable TimeSlain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime,Then, with his silver beard and magic wand,Let Comus rise archbishop of the land;Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe,Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.Rufillus, exquisitely form'd by rule,Not of the moral but the dancing school,Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a toneAs tragical as others at his own.He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,Then kill a constable, and drink five more;But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,And has the ladies' etiquette by heart.Go, fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, pleadYour cause before a bar you little dread;But know, the law that bids the drunkard dieIs far too just to pass the trifler by.Both baby-featured, and of infant size,View'd from a distance, and with heedless eyes,Folly and innocence are so alike,The difference, though essential, fails to strike.Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare,A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect,Delights us, by engaging our respect.Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet,Receives from her both appetite and treat;But, if he play the glutton and exceed,His benefactress blushes at the deed.For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.Daniel ate pulse by choice—example rare!Heaven bless'd the youth, and made him fresh and fair.Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:He snuffs far off the anticipated joy;Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ;Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat,Oh, nauseous!—an emetic for a whet!Will Providence o'erlook the wasted good?Temperance were no virtue if he could.That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,Are hurtful, is a truth confess'd by all.And some, that seem to threaten virtue lessStill hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess.Is man then only for his torment placedThe centre of delights he may not taste?Like fabled Tantalus, condemn'd to hearThe precious stream still purling in his ear,Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curstWith prohibition and perpetual thirst?No, wrangler—destitute of shame and sense,The precept, that enjoins him abstinence,Forbids him none but the licentious joy,Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laidIn every bosom where her nest is made,Hatch'd by the beams of truth, denies him rest,And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame,Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame?All these belong to virtue, and all proveThat virtue has a title to your love.Have you no touch of pity, that the poorStand starved at your inhospitable door?Or if yourself, too scantily supplied,Need help, let honest industry provide.Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart:These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern wasteSent us a wind to parch us at a blast?Can British Paradise no scenes affordTo please her sated and indifferent lord?Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments runQuite to the lees? And has religion none?Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie,And judge you from the kennel and the stye.Delights like these, ye sensual and profane,Ye are bid, begg'd, besought, to entertain;Call'd to these crystal streams, do ye turn offObscene to swill and swallow at a trough?Envy the beast, then, on whom Heaven bestowsYour pleasures, with no curses at the close.Pleasure admitted in undue degreeEnslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juiceUnnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,And woman, lovely woman, does the same.The heart, surrender'd to the ruling powerOf some ungovern'd passion every hour,Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway,And all their deep impressions, wear away;So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd,Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide,In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,Then welcome errors, of whatever size,To justify it by a thousand lies.As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;So sophistry cleaves close to and protectsSin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care,First wish to be imposed on, and then are.And lest the fulsome artifice should fail,Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.Not more industrious are the just and trueTo give to Virtue what is Virtue's due—The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,And call her charms to public notice forth—Than Vice's mean and disingenuous raceTo hide the shocking features of her face.Her form with dress and lotion they repair;Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.The sacred implement I now employMight prove a mischief, or at best a toy;A trifle, if it move but to amuse;But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,Worse than a poniard in the basest hand,It stabs at once the morals of a land.Ye writers of what none with safety reads,Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads;Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,Snivelling and drivelling folly without end;Whose corresponding misses fill the reamWith sentimental frippery and dream,Caught in a delicate soft silken netBy some lewd earl, or rake-hell baronet:Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence,Steal to the closet of young innocence,And teach her, inexperienced yet and green,To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen;Who, kindling a combustion of desire,With some cold moral think to quench the fire;Though all your engineering proves in vainThe dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again:Oh that a verse had power, and could commandFar, far away, these flesh-flies of the land,Who fasten without mercy on the fair,And suck, and leave a craving maggot there!Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale,And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil;Such writers, and such readers, owe the gustAnd relish of their pleasure all to lust.But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in viewA quarry more important still than you;Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away,Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey.Petronius! all the muses weep for thee;But every tear shall scald thy memory:The graces too, while Virtue at their shrineLay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast,Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and cursed the priest.Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth,Graybeard corrupter of our listening youth,To purge and skim away the filth of vice,That so refined it might the more entice,Then pour it on the morals of thy son,To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own!Now, while the poison all high life pervades,Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades,One, and one only, charged with deep regret,That thy worst part, thy principles, live yet;One sad epistle thence may cure mankindOf the plague spread by bundles left behind.'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears,Our most important are our earliest years;The mind, impressible and soft, with easeImbibes and copies what she hears and sees,And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clueThat Education gives her, false or true.Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;And without discipline the favourite child,Like a neglected forester, runs wild.But we, as if good qualities would growSpontaneous, take but little pains to sow:We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek;Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;And having done, we think, the best we can,Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;And thence with all convenient speed to Rome,With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day;With memorandum book for every town,And every post, and where the chaise broke down;His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,With much to learn, but nothing to impart;The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and silly stare,Discover huge cathedrals built with stone,And steeples towering high, much like our own;But show peculiar light by many a grinAt popish practices observed within.Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abbéRemarks two loiterers that have lost their way;And, being always primed with politesseFor men of their appearance and address,With much compassion undertakes the taskTo tell them more than they have wit to ask;Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,Such as, when legible, were never read,But being canker'd now and half worn out,Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;Some headless hero, or some Cæsar shows—Defective only in his Roman nose;Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans,Models of Herculanum pots and pans;And sells them medals, which, if neither rareNor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.Strange the recital! from whatever causeHis great improvement and new lights he draws,The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more,But teems with powers he never felt before;Whether increased momentum, and the forceWith which from clime to clime he sped his course,(As axles sometimes kindle as they go,)Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;Or whether clearer skies and softer air,That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,Unfolded genially, and spread the man;Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,By shrugs and strange contortions of his face,How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam,Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.Accomplishments have taken virtue's place,And wisdom falls before exterior grace:We slight the precious kernel of the stone,And toil to polish its rough coat alone.A just deportment, manners graced with ease,Elegant phrase, and figure form'd to please,Are qualities that seem to comprehendWhatever parents, guardians, schools, intend;Hence an unfurnish'd and a listless mind,Though busy, trifling; empty, though refined;Hence all that interferes, and dares to clashWith indolence and luxury, is trash;While learning, once the man's exclusive pride,Seems verging fast towards the female side.Learning itself, received into a mindBy nature weak, or viciously inclined,Serves but to lead philosophers astray,Where children would with ease discern the way.And of all arts sagacious dupes invent,To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent,The worst is—Scripture warp'd from its intent.The carriage bowls along, and all are pleasedIf Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased;But if the rogue be gone a cup too far,Left out his linchpin, or forgot his tar,It suffers interruption and delay,And meets with hindrance in the smoothest way.When some hypothesis absurd and vainHas fill'd with all its fumes a critic's brain,The text that sorts not with his darling whim,Though plain to others, is obscure to him.The will made subject to a lawless force,All is irregular, and out of course;And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way,Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday.A critic on the sacred book should beCandid and learn'd, dispassionate and free;Free from the wayward bias bigots feel,From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal;But above all, (or let the wretch refrain,Nor touch the page he cannot but profane,)Free from the domineering power of lust;A lewd interpreter is never just.How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,Thou god of our idolatry, the Press?By thee religion, liberty, and laws,Exert their influence and advance their cause:By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell,Diffused, make Earth the vestibule of Hell;Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise,Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;Like Eden's dread probationary tree,Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!No wild enthusiast ever yet could restTill half mankind were like himself possess'd.Philosophers, who darken and put outEternal truth by everlasting doubt;Church quacks, with passions under no command,Who fill the world with doctrines contraband,Discoverers of they know not what, confinedWithin no bounds—the blind that lead the blind;To streams of popular opinion drawn,Deposit in those shallows all their spawn.The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around,Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound.Scorn'd by the nobler tenants of the flood,Minnows and gudgeons gorge the unwholesome food.The propagated myriads spread so fast,E'en Leuwenhoeck himself would stand aghast,Employ'd to calculate the enormous sum,And own his crab-computing powers o'ercome.Is this hyperbole? The world well known,Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one.Fresh confidence the speculatist takesFrom every hair-brain'd proselyte he makes;And therefore prints: himself but half deceived,Till others have the soothing tale believed.Hence comment after comment, spun as fineAs bloated spiders draw the flimsy line.Hence the same word that bids our lusts obeyIs misapplied to sanctify their sway.If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend,Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend;If languages and copies all cry, No—Somebody proved it centuries ago.Like trout pursued, the critic in despairDarts to the mud, and finds his safety there:Women, whom custom has forbid to flyThe scholar's pitch, (the scholar best knows why,)With all the simple and unletter'd poor,Admire his learning, and almost adore.Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong,With such fine words familiar to his tongue.Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause,I should deserve to forfeit all applause)Whatever shocks or gives the least offenceTo virtue, delicacy, truth, or sense,(Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide,)Nor has, nor can have, Scripture on its side.None but an author knows an author's cares,Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.Committed once into the public arms,The baby seems to smile with added charms.Like something precious ventured far from shore,'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more.He views it with complacency supreme,Solicits kind attention to his dream;And daily, more enamour'd of the cheat,Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear deceit.So one, whose story serves at least to showMen loved their own productions long ago,Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife,Nor rested till the gods had given it life.If some mere driveller suck the sugar'd fib,One that still needs his leading string and bib,And praise his genius, he is soon repaidIn praise applied to the same part—his head;For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true,Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.Patient of contradiction as a child,Affable, humble, diffident, and mild;Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke;Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock.The creature is so sure to kick and bite,A muleteer's the man to set him right.First Appetite enlists him Truth's sworn foe,Then obstinate Self-will confirms him so.Tell him he wanders; that his error leadsTo fatal ills; that, though the path he treadsBe flowery, and he see no cause of fear,Death and the pains of hell attend him there:In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride,He has no hearing on the prudent side.His still refuted quirks he still repeats;New raised objections with new quibbles meets;Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends,He dies disputing, and the contest ends—But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind,Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind.Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill;Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will;And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied,First put it out, then take it for a guide.Halting on crutches of unequal size,One leg by truth supported, one by lies,They sidle to the goal with awkward pace,Secure of nothing—but to lose the race.Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,And these reciprocally those again.The mind and conduct mutually imprintAnd stamp their image in each other's mint;Each, sire and dam of an infernal race,Begetting and conceiving all that's base.None sends his arrow to the mark in view,Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue.For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing,Or when it first forsakes the elastic string,It err but little from the intended line,It falls at last far wide of his design;So he who seeks a mansion in the sky,Must watch his purpose with a stedfast eye;That prize belongs to none but the sincere,The least obliquity is fatal here.With caution taste the sweet Circean cup;He that sips often, at last drinks it up.Habits are soon assumed; but when we striveTo strip them off, 'tis being flay'd alive.Call'd to the temple of impure delight,He that abstains, and he alone, does right.If a wish wander that way, call it home;He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.But if you pass the threshold, you are caught;Die then, if power Almighty save you not.There hardening by degrees, till double steel'd,Take leave of nature's God, and God reveal'd;Then laugh at all you trembled at before;And, joining the freethinkers' brutal roar,Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense—That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense.If clemency revolted by abuseBe damnable, then damn'd without excuse.Some dream that they can silence, when they will,The storm of passion, and say, Peace, be still:But "Thus far and no farther," when address'dTo the wild wave, or wilder human breast,Implies authority that never can,That never ought to be the lot of man.But, muse, forbear; long flights forebode a fall;Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all.Hear the just law—the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he that will be cheated to the last,Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast.But if the wanderer his mistake discern,Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return,Bewilder'd once, must he bewail his lossFor ever and for ever? No—the cross!There and there only (though the deist rave,And atheist, if Earth bear so base a slave);There and there only is the power to save.There no delusive hope invites despair;No mockery meets you, no deception there.The spells and charms, that blinded you before,All vanish there, and fascinate no more.I am no preacher, let this hint suffice—The cross once seen is death to every vice;Else He that hung there suffer'd all his pain,Bled, groan'd, and agonized, and died, in vain.

Sing, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long,May find a muse to grace it with a song),By what unseen and unsuspected artsThe serpent Error twines round human hearts;Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades,That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades,The poisonous, black, insinuating wormSuccessfully conceals her loathsome form.Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine,Counsel and caution from a voice like mine!Truths, that the theorist could never reach,And observation taught me, I would teach.Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills,Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,Can trace her mazy windings to their end;Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,Falls soporific on the listless ear;Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they displayShines as it runs, but, grasp'd at, slips away.Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,Free in his will to choose or to refuse,Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,Say, to what bar amenable were man?With nought in charge he could betray no trust:And, if he fell, would fall because he must;If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,His recompence in both unjust alike.Divine authority within his breastBrings every thought, word, action, to the test;Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.Heaven from above, and conscience from within,Cries in his startled ear—Abstain from sin!The world around solicits his desire,And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire;While, all his purposes and steps to guard,Peace follows virtue as its sure reward;And pleasure brings as surely in her trainRemorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain.Man, thus endued with an elective voice,Must be supplied with objects of his choice,Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight,Or present or in prospect, meet his sight:Those open on the spot their honeyed store;These call him loudly to pursuit of more.His unexhausted mine the sordid viceAvarice shows, and virtue is the price.Here various motives his ambition raise—Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise;There beauty wooes him with expanded arms;E'en bacchanalian madness has its charms.Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refinedMight well alarm the most unguarded mind,Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth,Or lead him devious from the path of truth;Hourly allurements on his passions press,Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess.Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air!O what a dying, dying close was there!'Tis harmony, from yon sequester'd bower.Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour!Long ere the charioteer of day had runHis morning course the enchantment was begun;And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent,That virtue points to? Can a life thus spentLead to the bliss she promises the wise,Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies?Ye devotees to your adored employ,Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy,Love makes the music of the blest above,Heaven's harmony is universal love;And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined,And lenient as soft opiates to the mind,Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind.Grey dawn appears; the sportsman and his trainSpeckle the bosom of the distant plain;'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs;Save that his scent is less acute than theirs,For persevering chase, and headlong leaps,True beagle as the stanchest hound he keeps.Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene,He takes offence, and wonders what you mean;The joy the danger and the toil o'erpays—'Tis exercise, and health, and length of days.Again impetuous to the field he flies;Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies;Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brings him home,Unmiss'd but by his dogs and by his groom.Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place,Lights of the world and stars of human race;But, if eccentric ye forsake your sphere,Prodigies ominous and view'd with fear:The comet's baneful influence is a dream;Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme.What then! are appetites and lusts laid downWith the same ease that man puts on his gown?Will avarice and concupiscence give place,Charm'd by the sounds—Your Reverence, or your Grace?No. But his own engagement binds him fast;Or, if it does not, brands him to the lastWhat atheists call him—a designing knave,A mere church juggler, hypocrite and slave.Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest,A cassock'd huntsman and a fiddling priest!He from Italian songsters takes his cue:Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too.He takes the field. The master of the packCries—Well done, saint! and claps him on the back.Is this the path of sanctity? Is thisTo stand a waymark on the road to bliss?Himself a wanderer from the narrow way,His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray?Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet,Send your dishonour'd gown to Monmouth-street!The sacred function in your hands is made—Sad sacrilege—no function, but a trade!Occiduus is a pastor of renown,When he has pray'd and preach'd the sabbath down,With wire and catgut he concludes the day,Quavering and semiquavering care away.The full concerto swells upon your ear;All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swearThe Babylonian tyrant with a nodHad summon'd them to serve his golden god.So well that thought the employment seems to suit,Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute.O fie! 'tis evangelical and pure:Observe each face, how sober and demure!Ecstacy sets her stamp on every mien;Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen.Still I insist, though music heretoforeHas charm'd me much (not e'en Occiduus more),Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meetFor sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet.Will not the sickliest sheep of every flockResort to this example as a rock;There stand, and justify the foul abuseOf sabbath hours with plausible excuse;If apostolic gravity be freeTo play the fool on Sundays, why not we?If he the tinkling harpsichord regardsAs inoffensive, what offence in cards?Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay!Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.O Italy!—Thy sabbaths will be soonOur sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon.Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been,God's worship and the mountebank between.What says the prophet? Let that day be blestWith holiness and consecrated rest.Pastime and business, both it should exclude,And bar the door the moment they intrude;Nobly distinguished above all the sixBy deeds in which the world must never mix.Hear him again. He calls it a delight,A day of luxury observed aright,When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome guest,Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.But triflers are engaged and cannot come;Their answer to the call is—Not at home.O the dear pleasures of the velvet plain,The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again!Cards, with what rapture, and the polish'd die,The yawning chasm of indolence supply!Then to the dance, and make the sober moonWitness of joys that shun the sight of noon.Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,The snug close party, or the splendid hall,Where Night, down stooping from her ebon throne,Views constellations brighter than her own.'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,The balm of care, Elysium of the mind.Innocent! Oh, if venerable TimeSlain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime,Then, with his silver beard and magic wand,Let Comus rise archbishop of the land;Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe,Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast,The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.Rufillus, exquisitely form'd by rule,Not of the moral but the dancing school,Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a toneAs tragical as others at his own.He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,Then kill a constable, and drink five more;But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,And has the ladies' etiquette by heart.Go, fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, pleadYour cause before a bar you little dread;But know, the law that bids the drunkard dieIs far too just to pass the trifler by.Both baby-featured, and of infant size,View'd from a distance, and with heedless eyes,Folly and innocence are so alike,The difference, though essential, fails to strike.Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare,A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect,Delights us, by engaging our respect.Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet,Receives from her both appetite and treat;But, if he play the glutton and exceed,His benefactress blushes at the deed.For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense.Daniel ate pulse by choice—example rare!Heaven bless'd the youth, and made him fresh and fair.Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:He snuffs far off the anticipated joy;Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ;Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat,Oh, nauseous!—an emetic for a whet!Will Providence o'erlook the wasted good?Temperance were no virtue if he could.That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call,Are hurtful, is a truth confess'd by all.And some, that seem to threaten virtue lessStill hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess.Is man then only for his torment placedThe centre of delights he may not taste?Like fabled Tantalus, condemn'd to hearThe precious stream still purling in his ear,Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curstWith prohibition and perpetual thirst?No, wrangler—destitute of shame and sense,The precept, that enjoins him abstinence,Forbids him none but the licentious joy,Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy.Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laidIn every bosom where her nest is made,Hatch'd by the beams of truth, denies him rest,And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead?Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame,Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame?All these belong to virtue, and all proveThat virtue has a title to your love.Have you no touch of pity, that the poorStand starved at your inhospitable door?Or if yourself, too scantily supplied,Need help, let honest industry provide.Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart:These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern wasteSent us a wind to parch us at a blast?Can British Paradise no scenes affordTo please her sated and indifferent lord?Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments runQuite to the lees? And has religion none?Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie,And judge you from the kennel and the stye.Delights like these, ye sensual and profane,Ye are bid, begg'd, besought, to entertain;Call'd to these crystal streams, do ye turn offObscene to swill and swallow at a trough?Envy the beast, then, on whom Heaven bestowsYour pleasures, with no curses at the close.Pleasure admitted in undue degreeEnslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juiceUnnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,And woman, lovely woman, does the same.The heart, surrender'd to the ruling powerOf some ungovern'd passion every hour,Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway,And all their deep impressions, wear away;So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd,Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last.The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide,In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,Then welcome errors, of whatever size,To justify it by a thousand lies.As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;So sophistry cleaves close to and protectsSin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care,First wish to be imposed on, and then are.And lest the fulsome artifice should fail,Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.Not more industrious are the just and trueTo give to Virtue what is Virtue's due—The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,And call her charms to public notice forth—Than Vice's mean and disingenuous raceTo hide the shocking features of her face.Her form with dress and lotion they repair;Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair.The sacred implement I now employMight prove a mischief, or at best a toy;A trifle, if it move but to amuse;But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,Worse than a poniard in the basest hand,It stabs at once the morals of a land.Ye writers of what none with safety reads,Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads;Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,Snivelling and drivelling folly without end;Whose corresponding misses fill the reamWith sentimental frippery and dream,Caught in a delicate soft silken netBy some lewd earl, or rake-hell baronet:Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence,Steal to the closet of young innocence,And teach her, inexperienced yet and green,To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen;Who, kindling a combustion of desire,With some cold moral think to quench the fire;Though all your engineering proves in vainThe dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again:Oh that a verse had power, and could commandFar, far away, these flesh-flies of the land,Who fasten without mercy on the fair,And suck, and leave a craving maggot there!Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale,And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil;Such writers, and such readers, owe the gustAnd relish of their pleasure all to lust.But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in viewA quarry more important still than you;Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away,Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey.Petronius! all the muses weep for thee;But every tear shall scald thy memory:The graces too, while Virtue at their shrineLay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast,Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and cursed the priest.Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth,Graybeard corrupter of our listening youth,To purge and skim away the filth of vice,That so refined it might the more entice,Then pour it on the morals of thy son,To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own!Now, while the poison all high life pervades,Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades,One, and one only, charged with deep regret,That thy worst part, thy principles, live yet;One sad epistle thence may cure mankindOf the plague spread by bundles left behind.'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears,Our most important are our earliest years;The mind, impressible and soft, with easeImbibes and copies what she hears and sees,And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clueThat Education gives her, false or true.Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;And without discipline the favourite child,Like a neglected forester, runs wild.But we, as if good qualities would growSpontaneous, take but little pains to sow:We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek;Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;And having done, we think, the best we can,Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;And thence with all convenient speed to Rome,With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day;With memorandum book for every town,And every post, and where the chaise broke down;His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,With much to learn, but nothing to impart;The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and silly stare,Discover huge cathedrals built with stone,And steeples towering high, much like our own;But show peculiar light by many a grinAt popish practices observed within.Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abbéRemarks two loiterers that have lost their way;And, being always primed with politesseFor men of their appearance and address,With much compassion undertakes the taskTo tell them more than they have wit to ask;Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,Such as, when legible, were never read,But being canker'd now and half worn out,Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;Some headless hero, or some Cæsar shows—Defective only in his Roman nose;Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans,Models of Herculanum pots and pans;And sells them medals, which, if neither rareNor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.Strange the recital! from whatever causeHis great improvement and new lights he draws,The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more,But teems with powers he never felt before;Whether increased momentum, and the forceWith which from clime to clime he sped his course,(As axles sometimes kindle as they go,)Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;Or whether clearer skies and softer air,That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,Unfolded genially, and spread the man;Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,By shrugs and strange contortions of his face,How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam,Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.Accomplishments have taken virtue's place,And wisdom falls before exterior grace:We slight the precious kernel of the stone,And toil to polish its rough coat alone.A just deportment, manners graced with ease,Elegant phrase, and figure form'd to please,Are qualities that seem to comprehendWhatever parents, guardians, schools, intend;Hence an unfurnish'd and a listless mind,Though busy, trifling; empty, though refined;Hence all that interferes, and dares to clashWith indolence and luxury, is trash;While learning, once the man's exclusive pride,Seems verging fast towards the female side.Learning itself, received into a mindBy nature weak, or viciously inclined,Serves but to lead philosophers astray,Where children would with ease discern the way.And of all arts sagacious dupes invent,To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent,The worst is—Scripture warp'd from its intent.The carriage bowls along, and all are pleasedIf Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased;But if the rogue be gone a cup too far,Left out his linchpin, or forgot his tar,It suffers interruption and delay,And meets with hindrance in the smoothest way.When some hypothesis absurd and vainHas fill'd with all its fumes a critic's brain,The text that sorts not with his darling whim,Though plain to others, is obscure to him.The will made subject to a lawless force,All is irregular, and out of course;And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way,Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday.A critic on the sacred book should beCandid and learn'd, dispassionate and free;Free from the wayward bias bigots feel,From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal;But above all, (or let the wretch refrain,Nor touch the page he cannot but profane,)Free from the domineering power of lust;A lewd interpreter is never just.How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,Thou god of our idolatry, the Press?By thee religion, liberty, and laws,Exert their influence and advance their cause:By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell,Diffused, make Earth the vestibule of Hell;Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise,Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;Like Eden's dread probationary tree,Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!No wild enthusiast ever yet could restTill half mankind were like himself possess'd.Philosophers, who darken and put outEternal truth by everlasting doubt;Church quacks, with passions under no command,Who fill the world with doctrines contraband,Discoverers of they know not what, confinedWithin no bounds—the blind that lead the blind;To streams of popular opinion drawn,Deposit in those shallows all their spawn.The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around,Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound.Scorn'd by the nobler tenants of the flood,Minnows and gudgeons gorge the unwholesome food.The propagated myriads spread so fast,E'en Leuwenhoeck himself would stand aghast,Employ'd to calculate the enormous sum,And own his crab-computing powers o'ercome.Is this hyperbole? The world well known,Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one.Fresh confidence the speculatist takesFrom every hair-brain'd proselyte he makes;And therefore prints: himself but half deceived,Till others have the soothing tale believed.Hence comment after comment, spun as fineAs bloated spiders draw the flimsy line.Hence the same word that bids our lusts obeyIs misapplied to sanctify their sway.If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend,Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend;If languages and copies all cry, No—Somebody proved it centuries ago.Like trout pursued, the critic in despairDarts to the mud, and finds his safety there:Women, whom custom has forbid to flyThe scholar's pitch, (the scholar best knows why,)With all the simple and unletter'd poor,Admire his learning, and almost adore.Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong,With such fine words familiar to his tongue.Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause,I should deserve to forfeit all applause)Whatever shocks or gives the least offenceTo virtue, delicacy, truth, or sense,(Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide,)Nor has, nor can have, Scripture on its side.None but an author knows an author's cares,Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.Committed once into the public arms,The baby seems to smile with added charms.Like something precious ventured far from shore,'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more.He views it with complacency supreme,Solicits kind attention to his dream;And daily, more enamour'd of the cheat,Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear deceit.So one, whose story serves at least to showMen loved their own productions long ago,Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife,Nor rested till the gods had given it life.If some mere driveller suck the sugar'd fib,One that still needs his leading string and bib,And praise his genius, he is soon repaidIn praise applied to the same part—his head;For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true,Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.Patient of contradiction as a child,Affable, humble, diffident, and mild;Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke;Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock.The creature is so sure to kick and bite,A muleteer's the man to set him right.First Appetite enlists him Truth's sworn foe,Then obstinate Self-will confirms him so.Tell him he wanders; that his error leadsTo fatal ills; that, though the path he treadsBe flowery, and he see no cause of fear,Death and the pains of hell attend him there:In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride,He has no hearing on the prudent side.His still refuted quirks he still repeats;New raised objections with new quibbles meets;Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends,He dies disputing, and the contest ends—But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind,Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind.Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill;Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will;And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied,First put it out, then take it for a guide.Halting on crutches of unequal size,One leg by truth supported, one by lies,They sidle to the goal with awkward pace,Secure of nothing—but to lose the race.Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,And these reciprocally those again.The mind and conduct mutually imprintAnd stamp their image in each other's mint;Each, sire and dam of an infernal race,Begetting and conceiving all that's base.None sends his arrow to the mark in view,Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue.For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing,Or when it first forsakes the elastic string,It err but little from the intended line,It falls at last far wide of his design;So he who seeks a mansion in the sky,Must watch his purpose with a stedfast eye;That prize belongs to none but the sincere,The least obliquity is fatal here.With caution taste the sweet Circean cup;He that sips often, at last drinks it up.Habits are soon assumed; but when we striveTo strip them off, 'tis being flay'd alive.Call'd to the temple of impure delight,He that abstains, and he alone, does right.If a wish wander that way, call it home;He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.But if you pass the threshold, you are caught;Die then, if power Almighty save you not.There hardening by degrees, till double steel'd,Take leave of nature's God, and God reveal'd;Then laugh at all you trembled at before;And, joining the freethinkers' brutal roar,Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense—That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense.If clemency revolted by abuseBe damnable, then damn'd without excuse.Some dream that they can silence, when they will,The storm of passion, and say, Peace, be still:But "Thus far and no farther," when address'dTo the wild wave, or wilder human breast,Implies authority that never can,That never ought to be the lot of man.But, muse, forbear; long flights forebode a fall;Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all.Hear the just law—the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he that will be cheated to the last,Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast.But if the wanderer his mistake discern,Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return,Bewilder'd once, must he bewail his lossFor ever and for ever? No—the cross!There and there only (though the deist rave,And atheist, if Earth bear so base a slave);There and there only is the power to save.There no delusive hope invites despair;No mockery meets you, no deception there.The spells and charms, that blinded you before,All vanish there, and fascinate no more.I am no preacher, let this hint suffice—The cross once seen is death to every vice;Else He that hung there suffer'd all his pain,Bled, groan'd, and agonized, and died, in vain.

Pensantur trutinâ.Hor.lib. ii. Ep. 1.

The pursuit of error leads to destruction—Grace leads the right way—Its direction despised—The self-sufficient Pharisee compared with the peacock—The pheasant compared with the Christian—Heaven abhors affected sanctity—The hermit and his penances—The self-torturing Bramin—Pride the ruling principle of both—Picture of a sanctimonious prude—Picture of a saint—Freedom of a Christian—Importance of motives, illustrated by the conduct of two servants—The traveller overtaken by a storm likened to the sinner dreading the vengeance of the Almighty—Dangerous state of those who are just in their own conceit—The last moments of the infidel—Content of the ignorant but believing cottager—The rich, the wise, and the great, neglect the means of winning heaven—Poverty the best soil for religion—What man really is, and what in his own esteem—Unbelief often terminates in suicide—Scripture the only cure of woe—Pride the passion most hostile to truth—Danger of slighting the mercy offered by the Gospel—Plea for the virtuous heathen—Commands given by God on Sinai—The judgment-day—Plea of the believer.

Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd,His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost,Sees, far as human optics may command,A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land;Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies!Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes,His well-built systems, philosophic dreams;Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell!He reads his sentence at the flames of hell.Hard lot of man—to toil for the rewardOf virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore hard?—He that would win the race must guide his horseObedient to the customs of the course;Else, though unequall'd to the goal he flies,A meaner than himself shall gain the prize.Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,Take it and perish; but restrain your tongue;Charge not, with light sufficient and left free,Your wilful suicide on God's decree.Oh how unlike the complex works of man,Heav'n's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan!No meretricious graces to beguile,No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;From ostentation, as from weakness, free,It stands like the cerulian arch we see,Majestic in its own simplicity.Inscribed above the portal, from afarConspicuous as the brightness of a star,Legible only by the light they give,Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE, AND LIVE.Too many, shock'd at what should charm them most,Despise the plain direction, and are lost.Heaven on such terms! (they cry with proud disdain)Incredible, impossible, and vain!—Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey;And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way.These are the sober, in whose cooler brainsSome thought of immortality remains;The rest too busy or too gay to waitOn the sad theme, their everlasting state,Sport for a day, and perish in a night;The foam upon the waters not so light.Who judged the Pharisee! What odious causeExposed him to the vengeance of the laws?Had he seduced a virgin, wrong'd a friend,Or stabb'd a man to serve some private end?Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he strayFrom the strict duties of the sacred day?Sit long and late at the carousing board?(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.)No—the man's morals were exact. What then?'Twas his ambition to be seen of men;His virtues were his pride; and that one viceMade all his virtues gewgaws of no price;He wore them as fine trappings for a show,A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau.The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see—Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he!Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfoldHis radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:He treads as if, some solemn music near,His measured step were govern'd by his ear;And seems to say—Ye meaner fowl give place;I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mienTo the close copse or far sequester'd green,And shines without desiring to be seen.The plea of works, as arrogant and vain,Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain;Not more affronted by avowed neglect,Than by the mere dissembler's feign'd respect.What is all righteousness that men devise?What—but a sordid bargain for the skies?But Christ as soon would abdicate his own,As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.His dwelling a recess in some rude rock;Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock;In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd,Girt with a bell-rope that the pope has bless'd;Adust with stripes told out for every crime,And sore tormented, long before his time;His prayer preferr'd to saints that cannot aid,His praise postponed, and never to be paid;See the sage hermit, by mankind admired,With all that bigotry adopts inspired,Wearing out life in his religious whim,Till his religious whimsy wears out him.His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow'd,You think him humble—God accounts him proud.High in demand, though lowly in pretence,Of all his conduct this the genuine sense—My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,Have purchased heaven, and proved my title good.Turn eastward now, and fancy shall applyTo your weak sight her telescopic eye.The bramin kindles on his own bare headThe sacred fire, self-torturing his trade!His voluntary pains, severe and long,Would give a barbarous air to British song;No grand inquisitor could worse invent,Than he contrives to suffer well content.Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you.Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name?I say the bramin has the fairer claim.If sufferings scripture nowhere recommends,Devised by self, to answer selfish ends,Give saintship, then all Europe must agreeTen starveling hermits suffer less than he.The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear,And prejudice have left a passage clear)Pride has attained a most luxuriant growth,And poison'd every virtue in them both.Pride may be pamper'd while the flesh grows lean;Humility may clothe an English dean;That grace was Cowper's—his, confess'd by all—Though placed in golden Durham's second stall.Not all the plenty of a bishop's board,His palace, and his lacqueys, and "My Lord,"More nourish pride, that condescending vice,Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice;It thrives in misery, and abundant grows:In misery fools upon themselves impose.But why before us protestants produceAn Indian mystic or a French recluse?Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear,Reform'd and well-instructed? You shall hear.Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features showShe might be young some forty years ago,Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips,Her head erect, her fan upon her lips,Her eyebrows arched, her eyes both gone astrayTo watch yon amorous couple in their play,With bony and unkerchief'd neck defiesThe rude inclemency of wintry skies,And sails with lappet head and mincing airsDuly at clink of bell to morning prayers.To thrift and parsimony much inclined,She yet allows herself that boy behind;The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,With slipshod heels and dewdrop at his nose,His predecessor's coat advanced to wear,Which future pages yet are doom'd to share,Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm,And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.She, half an angel in her own account,Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount,Though not a grace appears on strictest search,But that she fasts, anditem, goes to church.Conscious of age, she recollects her youth,And tells, not always with an eye to truth,Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he came,Scrawl'd upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name;Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay,And drank the little bumper every day.Of temper as envenom'd as an asp,Censorious, and her every word a wasp;In faithful memory she records the crimesOr real, or fictitious, of the times;Laughs at the reputations she has torn,And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn.Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride,Of malice fed while flesh is mortified:Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers,Where hermits and where bramins meet with theirs;Your portion is with them.—Nay, never frown,But, if you please, some fathoms lower down.Artist, attend—your brushes and your paint—Produce them—take a chair—now draw a saint.Oh sorrowful and sad! the streaming tearsChannel her cheeks—a Niobe appears!Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away—True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groanFor others' woes, but smiles upon her own.What purpose has the King of saints in view?Why falls the gospel like a gracious dew?To call up plenty from the teeming earth,Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth?Is it that Adam's offspring may be savedFrom servile fear, or be the more enslaved?To loose the links that gall'd mankind before,Or bind them faster on, and add still more?The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove,Or, if a chain, the golden one of love:No fear attends to quench his glowing fires,What fear he feels his gratitude inspires.Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought,Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.His Master's interest and his own combinedPrompt every movement of his heart and mind:Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince,His freedom is the freedom of a prince.Man's obligations infinite, of courseHis life should prove that he perceives their force;His utmost he can render is but small—The principle and motive all in all.You have two servants—Tom, an arch, sly rogue,From top to toe the Geta now in vogue,Genteel in figure, easy in address,Moves without noise, and swift as an express,Reports a message with a pleasing grace,Expert in all the duties of his place;Say, on what hinge does his obedience move?Has he a world of gratitude and love?No, not a spark—'tis all mere sharper's play;He likes your house, your housemaid, and your pay;Reduce his wages, or get rid of her,Tom quits you, with—Your most obedient, sir.The dinner served, Charles takes his usual stand,Watches your eye, anticipates command;Sighs, if perhaps your appetite should fail;And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale;Consults all day your interest and your ease,Richly rewarded if he can but please;And, proud to make his firm attachment known,To save your life would nobly risk his own.Now which stands highest in your serious thought?Charles, without doubt, say you—and so he ought;One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds,Excels ten thousand mercenary deeds.Thus Heaven approves as honest and sincereThe work of generous love and filial fear;But with averted eyes the omniscient JudgeScorns the base hireling and the slavish drudge.Where dwell these matchless saints? old Curio cries.E'en at your side, sir, and before your eyes,The favour'd few—the enthusiasts you despise.And, pleased at heart because on holy ground,Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found,Reproach a people with his single fall,And cast his filthy raiment at them all.Attend! an apt similitude shall showWhence springs the conduct that offends you so.See where it smokes along the sounding plain,Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain,Peal upon peal redoubling all around,Shakes it again and faster to the ground;Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play,Swift beyond thought the lightnings dart away.Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed,And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed;Now drench'd throughout, and hopeless of his case,He drops the rein, and leaves him to his pace.Suppose, unlook'd for in a scene so rude,Long hid by interposing hill or wood,Some mansion, neat and elegantly dress'd,By some kind hospitable heart possess'd,Offer him warmth, security, and rest;Think with what pleasure, safe, and at his ease,He hears the tempest howling in the trees;What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ,While danger past is turn'd to present joy.So fares it with the sinner, when he feelsA growing dread of vengeance at his heels:His conscience like a glassy lake before,Lash'd into foaming waves, begins to roar;The law, grown clamorous, though silent long,Arraigns him, charges him with every wrong—Asserts the right of his offended Lord,And death, or restitution, is the word:The last impossible, he fears the first,And, having well deserved, expects the worst.Then welcome refuge and a peaceful home;Oh for a shelter from the wrath to come!Crush me, ye rocks; ye falling mountains, hide,Or bury me in ocean's angry tide!—The scrutiny of those all-seeing eyesI dare not—And you need not, God replies;The remedy you want I freely give;The book shall teach you—read, believe, and live!'Tis done—the raging storm is heard no more,Mercy receives him on her peaceful shore:And Justice, guardian of the dread command,Drops the red vengeance from his willing hand.A soul redeem'd demands a life of praise;Hence the complexion of his future days,Hence a demeanour holy and unspeck'd,And the world's hatred, as its sure effect.Some lead a life unblameable and just,Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust:They never sin—or if (as all offend)Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,The poor are near at hand, the charge is small,A slight gratuity atones for all.For though the pope has lost his interest here,And pardons are not sold as once they were,No papist more desirous to compound,Than some grave sinners upon English ground.That plea refuted, other quirks they seek—Mercy is infinite, and man is weak;The future shall obliterate the past,And heaven, no doubt, shall be their home at last.Come, then—a still, small whisper in your ear—He has no hope who never had a fear;And he that never doubted of his state,He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late.The path to bliss abounds with many a snare;Learning is one, and wit, however rare.The Frenchman, first in literary fame,(Mention him, if you please. Voltaire?—The same)With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died;The Scripture was his jest book, whence he drewBon-motsto gall the Christian and the Jew;An infidel in health, but what when sick?Oh—then a text would touch him at the quick;View him at Paris in his last career,Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere;Exalted on his pedestal of pride,And fumed with frankincense on every side,He begs their flattery with his latest breath,And, smother'd in't at last, is praised to death!Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,Pillow and bobbins all her little store;Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,Shuffling her threads about the live-long day,Just earns a scanty pittance, and at nightLies down secure, her heart and pocket light;She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,Has little understanding, and no wit,Receives no praise; but though her lot be such,(Toilsome and indigent,) she renders much;Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,Her title to a treasure in the skies.Oh, happy peasant! Oh, unhappy bard!His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;He praised perhaps for ages yet to come,She never heard of half a mile from home:He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers,She, safe in the simplicity of hers.Not many wise, rich, noble, or profoundIn science win one inch of heavenly ground.And is it not a mortifying thoughtThe poor should gain it, and the rich should not?No—the voluptuaries, who ne'er forgetOne pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret;Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer,Prayer would add faith, and faith would fix them there.Not that the Former of us all in this,Or aught he does, is govern'd by caprice;The supposition is replete with sin,And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in.Not so—the silver trumpet's heavenly callSounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all:Kings are invited, and would kings obey,No slaves on earth more welcome were than they;But royalty, nobility, and state,Are such a dead preponderating weight,That endless bliss, (how strange soe'er it seem,)In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam.'Tis open, and ye cannot enter—why?Because ye will not, Conyers would reply—And he says much that many may disputeAnd cavil at with ease, but none refute.Oh, bless'd effect of penury and want,The seed sown there, how vigorous is the plant!No soil like poverty for growth divine,As leanest land supplies the richest wine.Earth gives too little, giving only bread,To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head:To them the sounding jargon of the schoolsSeems what it is—a cap and bells for fools:The light they walk by, kindled from above,Shows them the shortest way to life and love:They, strangers to the controversial field,Where deists, always foil'd, yet scorn to yield,And never check'd by what impedes the wise,Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize.Envy, ye great, the dull unletter'd small:Ye have much cause for envy—but not all.We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,And one who wears a coronet and prays;Like gleanings of an olive tree, they showHere and there one upon the topmost bough.How readily, upon the Gospel plan,That question has its answer—What is man?Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch;An instrument, whose chords, upon the stretch,And strain'd to the last screw that he can bear,Yield only discord in his Maker's ear:Once the blest residence of truth divine,Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine,Where, in his own oracular abode,Dwelt visibly the light-creating God;But made long since, like Babylon of old,A den of mischiefs never to be told:And she, once mistress of the realms around,Now scattered wide and no where to be found,As soon shall rise and re-ascend the throne,By native power and energy her own,As nature, at her own peculiar cost,Restore to man the glories he has lost.Go—bid the winter cease to chill the year,Replace the wandering comet in his sphere,Then boast (but wait for that unhoped for hour)The self-restoring arm of human power.But what is man in his own proud esteem?Hear him—himself the poet and the theme:A monarch clothed with majesty and awe,His mind his kingdom, and his will his law;Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes,Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies,Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod,And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a God!So sings he, charm'd with his own mind and form,The song magnificent—the theme a worm!Himself so much the source of his delight,His Maker has no beauty in his sight.See where he sits, contemplative and fix'd,Pleasure and wonder in his features mix'd,His passions tamed and all at his control,How perfect the composure of his soul!Complacency has breathed a gentle galeO'er all his thoughts, and swell'd his easy sail:His books well trimm'd, and in the gayest style,Like regimental coxcombs, rank and file,Adorn his intellects as well as shelves,And teach him notions splendid as themselves:The Bible only stands neglected there,Though that of all most worthy of his care;And, like an infant troublesome awake,Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake.What shall the man deserve of human kind,Whose happy skill and industry combinedShall prove (what argument could never yet)The Bible an imposture and a cheat?The praises of the libertine profess'd,The worst of men, and curses of the best.Where should the living, weeping o'er his woes;The dying, trembling at the awful close;Where the betray'd, forsaken, and oppress'd;The thousands whom the world forbids to rest;Where should they find, (those comforts at an end,The Scripture yields,) or hope to find, a friend?Sorrow might muse herself to madness then,And, seeking exile from the sight of men,Bury herself in solitude profound,Grow frantic with her pangs, and bite the ground.Thus often Unbelief, grown sick of life,Flies to the tempting pool, or felon knife.The jury meet, the coroner is short,And lunacy the verdict of the court.Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known,Such lunacy is ignorance alone;They knew not, what some bishops may not know,That Scripture is the only cure of woe.That field of promise how it flings abroadIts odour o'er the Christian's thorny road!The soul, reposing on assured relief,Feels herself happy amidst all her grief,Forgets her labour as she toils along,Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song.But the same word, that, like the polish'd share,Ploughs up the roots of a believer's care,Kills too the flowery weeds, where'er they grow,That bind the sinner's Bacchanalian brow.Oh, that unwelcome voice of heavenly love,Sad messenger of mercy from above!How does it grate upon his thankless ear,Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear!His will and judgment at continual strife,That civil war embitters all his life;In vain he points his powers against the skies,In vain he closes or averts his eyes,Truth will intrude—she bids him yet beware;And shakes the sceptic in the scorner's chair.Though various foes against the Truth combine,Pride above all opposes her design;Pride, of a growth superior to the rest,The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest,Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage,Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage.And is the soul indeed so lost?—she cries,Fallen from her glory, and too weak to rise?Torpid and dull, beneath a frozen zone,Has she no spark that may be deem'd her own?Grant her indebted to what zealots callGrace undeserved, yet surely not for all!Some beams of rectitude she yet displays,Some love of virtue, and some power to praise;Can lift herself above corporeal things,And, soaring on her own unborrow'd wings,Possess herself of all that's good or true,Assert the skies, and vindicate her due.Past indiscretion is a venial crime;And if the youth, unmellowed yet by time,Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude,Fruits of a blighted size, austere and crude,Maturer years shall happier stores produce,And meliorate the well-concocted juice.Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal,To Justice she may make her bold appeal;And leave to Mercy, with a tranquil mind,The worthless and unfruitful of mankind.Hear then how Mercy, slighted and defied,Retorts the affront against the crown of pride.Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorr'd,And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.The atonement a Redeemer's love has wroughtIs not for you—the righteous need it not.Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets,The worn-out nuisance of the public streets,Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn?The gracious shower, unlimited and free,Shall fall on her, when Heaven denies it thee.Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift—That man is dead in sin, and life a gift.Is virtue, then, unless of Christian growth,Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe,For ignorance of what they could not know?—That speech betrays at once a bigot's tongue,Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong!Truly, not I—the partial light men have,My creed persuades me, well employ'd, may save;While he that scorns the noon-day beam, perverse,Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mindLeft sensuality and dross behind,Possess, for me, their undisputed lot,And take, unenvied, the reward they sought.But still in virtue of a Saviour's plea,Not blind by choice, but destined not to see.Their fortitude and wisdom were a flameCelestial, though they knew not whence it came,Derived from the same source of light and grace,That guides the Christian in his swifter race;Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law:That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,Led them, however faltering, faint, and slow,From what they knew to what they wish'd to know.But let not him that shares a brighter dayTraduce the splendour of a noontide ray,Prefer the twilight of a darker time,And deem his base stupidity no crime;The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies,And sinks, while favour'd with the means to rise,Shall find them rated at their full amount,The good he scorn'd all carried to account.Marshalling all his terrors as he came,Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring flame,From Sinai's top Jehovah gave the law—Life for obedience—death for every flaw.When the great Sovereign would his will express,He gives a perfect rule, what can he less?And guards it with a sanction as severeAs vengeance can inflict, or sinners fear:Else his own glorious rights he would disclaim,And man might safely trifle with his name.He bids him glow with unremitting loveTo all on earth, and to himself above;Condemns the injurious deed, the slanderous tongue,The thought that meditates a brother's wrong:Brings not alone the more conspicuous part,His conduct, to the test, but tries his heart.Hark! universal nature shook and groan'd,'Twas the last trumpet—see the Judge enthroned:Rouse all your courage at your utmost need,Now summon every virtue, stand and plead.What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more?That self-renouncing wisdom, learn'd before,Had shed immortal glories on your brow,That all your virtues cannot purchase now.All joy to the believer! He can speak—Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek.Since the dear hour that brought me to thy footAnd cut up all my follies by the root,I never trusted in an arm but thine,Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine:My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled,Were but the feeble efforts of a child;Howe'er performed, it was their brightest part,That they proceeded from a grateful heart:Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood,Forgive their evil and accept their good:I cast them at thy feet—my only pleaIs what it was, dependence upon thee:While struggling in the vale of tears below,That never fail'd, nor shall it fail me now.Angelic gratulations rend the skies,Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise,Humility is crown'd, and Faith receives the prize.

Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd,His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost,Sees, far as human optics may command,A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land;Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies;Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies!Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes,His well-built systems, philosophic dreams;Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell!He reads his sentence at the flames of hell.Hard lot of man—to toil for the rewardOf virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore hard?—He that would win the race must guide his horseObedient to the customs of the course;Else, though unequall'd to the goal he flies,A meaner than himself shall gain the prize.Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,Take it and perish; but restrain your tongue;Charge not, with light sufficient and left free,Your wilful suicide on God's decree.Oh how unlike the complex works of man,Heav'n's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan!No meretricious graces to beguile,No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;From ostentation, as from weakness, free,It stands like the cerulian arch we see,Majestic in its own simplicity.Inscribed above the portal, from afarConspicuous as the brightness of a star,Legible only by the light they give,Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE, AND LIVE.Too many, shock'd at what should charm them most,Despise the plain direction, and are lost.Heaven on such terms! (they cry with proud disdain)Incredible, impossible, and vain!—Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey;And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way.These are the sober, in whose cooler brainsSome thought of immortality remains;The rest too busy or too gay to waitOn the sad theme, their everlasting state,Sport for a day, and perish in a night;The foam upon the waters not so light.Who judged the Pharisee! What odious causeExposed him to the vengeance of the laws?Had he seduced a virgin, wrong'd a friend,Or stabb'd a man to serve some private end?Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he strayFrom the strict duties of the sacred day?Sit long and late at the carousing board?(Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.)No—the man's morals were exact. What then?'Twas his ambition to be seen of men;His virtues were his pride; and that one viceMade all his virtues gewgaws of no price;He wore them as fine trappings for a show,A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau.The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see—Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he!Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfoldHis radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:He treads as if, some solemn music near,His measured step were govern'd by his ear;And seems to say—Ye meaner fowl give place;I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mienTo the close copse or far sequester'd green,And shines without desiring to be seen.The plea of works, as arrogant and vain,Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain;Not more affronted by avowed neglect,Than by the mere dissembler's feign'd respect.What is all righteousness that men devise?What—but a sordid bargain for the skies?But Christ as soon would abdicate his own,As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.His dwelling a recess in some rude rock;Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock;In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd,Girt with a bell-rope that the pope has bless'd;Adust with stripes told out for every crime,And sore tormented, long before his time;His prayer preferr'd to saints that cannot aid,His praise postponed, and never to be paid;See the sage hermit, by mankind admired,With all that bigotry adopts inspired,Wearing out life in his religious whim,Till his religious whimsy wears out him.His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow'd,You think him humble—God accounts him proud.High in demand, though lowly in pretence,Of all his conduct this the genuine sense—My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,Have purchased heaven, and proved my title good.Turn eastward now, and fancy shall applyTo your weak sight her telescopic eye.The bramin kindles on his own bare headThe sacred fire, self-torturing his trade!His voluntary pains, severe and long,Would give a barbarous air to British song;No grand inquisitor could worse invent,Than he contrives to suffer well content.Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you.Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name?I say the bramin has the fairer claim.If sufferings scripture nowhere recommends,Devised by self, to answer selfish ends,Give saintship, then all Europe must agreeTen starveling hermits suffer less than he.The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear,And prejudice have left a passage clear)Pride has attained a most luxuriant growth,And poison'd every virtue in them both.Pride may be pamper'd while the flesh grows lean;Humility may clothe an English dean;That grace was Cowper's—his, confess'd by all—Though placed in golden Durham's second stall.Not all the plenty of a bishop's board,His palace, and his lacqueys, and "My Lord,"More nourish pride, that condescending vice,Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice;It thrives in misery, and abundant grows:In misery fools upon themselves impose.But why before us protestants produceAn Indian mystic or a French recluse?Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear,Reform'd and well-instructed? You shall hear.Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features showShe might be young some forty years ago,Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips,Her head erect, her fan upon her lips,Her eyebrows arched, her eyes both gone astrayTo watch yon amorous couple in their play,With bony and unkerchief'd neck defiesThe rude inclemency of wintry skies,And sails with lappet head and mincing airsDuly at clink of bell to morning prayers.To thrift and parsimony much inclined,She yet allows herself that boy behind;The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,With slipshod heels and dewdrop at his nose,His predecessor's coat advanced to wear,Which future pages yet are doom'd to share,Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm,And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.She, half an angel in her own account,Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount,Though not a grace appears on strictest search,But that she fasts, anditem, goes to church.Conscious of age, she recollects her youth,And tells, not always with an eye to truth,Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he came,Scrawl'd upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name;Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay,And drank the little bumper every day.Of temper as envenom'd as an asp,Censorious, and her every word a wasp;In faithful memory she records the crimesOr real, or fictitious, of the times;Laughs at the reputations she has torn,And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn.Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride,Of malice fed while flesh is mortified:Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers,Where hermits and where bramins meet with theirs;Your portion is with them.—Nay, never frown,But, if you please, some fathoms lower down.Artist, attend—your brushes and your paint—Produce them—take a chair—now draw a saint.Oh sorrowful and sad! the streaming tearsChannel her cheeks—a Niobe appears!Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away—True piety is cheerful as the day,Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groanFor others' woes, but smiles upon her own.What purpose has the King of saints in view?Why falls the gospel like a gracious dew?To call up plenty from the teeming earth,Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth?Is it that Adam's offspring may be savedFrom servile fear, or be the more enslaved?To loose the links that gall'd mankind before,Or bind them faster on, and add still more?The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove,Or, if a chain, the golden one of love:No fear attends to quench his glowing fires,What fear he feels his gratitude inspires.Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought,Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.His Master's interest and his own combinedPrompt every movement of his heart and mind:Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince,His freedom is the freedom of a prince.Man's obligations infinite, of courseHis life should prove that he perceives their force;His utmost he can render is but small—The principle and motive all in all.You have two servants—Tom, an arch, sly rogue,From top to toe the Geta now in vogue,Genteel in figure, easy in address,Moves without noise, and swift as an express,Reports a message with a pleasing grace,Expert in all the duties of his place;Say, on what hinge does his obedience move?Has he a world of gratitude and love?No, not a spark—'tis all mere sharper's play;He likes your house, your housemaid, and your pay;Reduce his wages, or get rid of her,Tom quits you, with—Your most obedient, sir.The dinner served, Charles takes his usual stand,Watches your eye, anticipates command;Sighs, if perhaps your appetite should fail;And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale;Consults all day your interest and your ease,Richly rewarded if he can but please;And, proud to make his firm attachment known,To save your life would nobly risk his own.Now which stands highest in your serious thought?Charles, without doubt, say you—and so he ought;One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds,Excels ten thousand mercenary deeds.Thus Heaven approves as honest and sincereThe work of generous love and filial fear;But with averted eyes the omniscient JudgeScorns the base hireling and the slavish drudge.Where dwell these matchless saints? old Curio cries.E'en at your side, sir, and before your eyes,The favour'd few—the enthusiasts you despise.And, pleased at heart because on holy ground,Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found,Reproach a people with his single fall,And cast his filthy raiment at them all.Attend! an apt similitude shall showWhence springs the conduct that offends you so.See where it smokes along the sounding plain,Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain,Peal upon peal redoubling all around,Shakes it again and faster to the ground;Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play,Swift beyond thought the lightnings dart away.Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed,And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed;Now drench'd throughout, and hopeless of his case,He drops the rein, and leaves him to his pace.Suppose, unlook'd for in a scene so rude,Long hid by interposing hill or wood,Some mansion, neat and elegantly dress'd,By some kind hospitable heart possess'd,Offer him warmth, security, and rest;Think with what pleasure, safe, and at his ease,He hears the tempest howling in the trees;What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ,While danger past is turn'd to present joy.So fares it with the sinner, when he feelsA growing dread of vengeance at his heels:His conscience like a glassy lake before,Lash'd into foaming waves, begins to roar;The law, grown clamorous, though silent long,Arraigns him, charges him with every wrong—Asserts the right of his offended Lord,And death, or restitution, is the word:The last impossible, he fears the first,And, having well deserved, expects the worst.Then welcome refuge and a peaceful home;Oh for a shelter from the wrath to come!Crush me, ye rocks; ye falling mountains, hide,Or bury me in ocean's angry tide!—The scrutiny of those all-seeing eyesI dare not—And you need not, God replies;The remedy you want I freely give;The book shall teach you—read, believe, and live!'Tis done—the raging storm is heard no more,Mercy receives him on her peaceful shore:And Justice, guardian of the dread command,Drops the red vengeance from his willing hand.A soul redeem'd demands a life of praise;Hence the complexion of his future days,Hence a demeanour holy and unspeck'd,And the world's hatred, as its sure effect.Some lead a life unblameable and just,Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust:They never sin—or if (as all offend)Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,The poor are near at hand, the charge is small,A slight gratuity atones for all.For though the pope has lost his interest here,And pardons are not sold as once they were,No papist more desirous to compound,Than some grave sinners upon English ground.That plea refuted, other quirks they seek—Mercy is infinite, and man is weak;The future shall obliterate the past,And heaven, no doubt, shall be their home at last.Come, then—a still, small whisper in your ear—He has no hope who never had a fear;And he that never doubted of his state,He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late.The path to bliss abounds with many a snare;Learning is one, and wit, however rare.The Frenchman, first in literary fame,(Mention him, if you please. Voltaire?—The same)With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died;The Scripture was his jest book, whence he drewBon-motsto gall the Christian and the Jew;An infidel in health, but what when sick?Oh—then a text would touch him at the quick;View him at Paris in his last career,Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere;Exalted on his pedestal of pride,And fumed with frankincense on every side,He begs their flattery with his latest breath,And, smother'd in't at last, is praised to death!Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,Pillow and bobbins all her little store;Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,Shuffling her threads about the live-long day,Just earns a scanty pittance, and at nightLies down secure, her heart and pocket light;She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,Has little understanding, and no wit,Receives no praise; but though her lot be such,(Toilsome and indigent,) she renders much;Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,Her title to a treasure in the skies.Oh, happy peasant! Oh, unhappy bard!His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;He praised perhaps for ages yet to come,She never heard of half a mile from home:He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers,She, safe in the simplicity of hers.Not many wise, rich, noble, or profoundIn science win one inch of heavenly ground.And is it not a mortifying thoughtThe poor should gain it, and the rich should not?No—the voluptuaries, who ne'er forgetOne pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret;Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer,Prayer would add faith, and faith would fix them there.Not that the Former of us all in this,Or aught he does, is govern'd by caprice;The supposition is replete with sin,And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in.Not so—the silver trumpet's heavenly callSounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all:Kings are invited, and would kings obey,No slaves on earth more welcome were than they;But royalty, nobility, and state,Are such a dead preponderating weight,That endless bliss, (how strange soe'er it seem,)In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam.'Tis open, and ye cannot enter—why?Because ye will not, Conyers would reply—And he says much that many may disputeAnd cavil at with ease, but none refute.Oh, bless'd effect of penury and want,The seed sown there, how vigorous is the plant!No soil like poverty for growth divine,As leanest land supplies the richest wine.Earth gives too little, giving only bread,To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head:To them the sounding jargon of the schoolsSeems what it is—a cap and bells for fools:The light they walk by, kindled from above,Shows them the shortest way to life and love:They, strangers to the controversial field,Where deists, always foil'd, yet scorn to yield,And never check'd by what impedes the wise,Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize.Envy, ye great, the dull unletter'd small:Ye have much cause for envy—but not all.We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,And one who wears a coronet and prays;Like gleanings of an olive tree, they showHere and there one upon the topmost bough.How readily, upon the Gospel plan,That question has its answer—What is man?Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch;An instrument, whose chords, upon the stretch,And strain'd to the last screw that he can bear,Yield only discord in his Maker's ear:Once the blest residence of truth divine,Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine,Where, in his own oracular abode,Dwelt visibly the light-creating God;But made long since, like Babylon of old,A den of mischiefs never to be told:And she, once mistress of the realms around,Now scattered wide and no where to be found,As soon shall rise and re-ascend the throne,By native power and energy her own,As nature, at her own peculiar cost,Restore to man the glories he has lost.Go—bid the winter cease to chill the year,Replace the wandering comet in his sphere,Then boast (but wait for that unhoped for hour)The self-restoring arm of human power.But what is man in his own proud esteem?Hear him—himself the poet and the theme:A monarch clothed with majesty and awe,His mind his kingdom, and his will his law;Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes,Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies,Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod,And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a God!So sings he, charm'd with his own mind and form,The song magnificent—the theme a worm!Himself so much the source of his delight,His Maker has no beauty in his sight.See where he sits, contemplative and fix'd,Pleasure and wonder in his features mix'd,His passions tamed and all at his control,How perfect the composure of his soul!Complacency has breathed a gentle galeO'er all his thoughts, and swell'd his easy sail:His books well trimm'd, and in the gayest style,Like regimental coxcombs, rank and file,Adorn his intellects as well as shelves,And teach him notions splendid as themselves:The Bible only stands neglected there,Though that of all most worthy of his care;And, like an infant troublesome awake,Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake.What shall the man deserve of human kind,Whose happy skill and industry combinedShall prove (what argument could never yet)The Bible an imposture and a cheat?The praises of the libertine profess'd,The worst of men, and curses of the best.Where should the living, weeping o'er his woes;The dying, trembling at the awful close;Where the betray'd, forsaken, and oppress'd;The thousands whom the world forbids to rest;Where should they find, (those comforts at an end,The Scripture yields,) or hope to find, a friend?Sorrow might muse herself to madness then,And, seeking exile from the sight of men,Bury herself in solitude profound,Grow frantic with her pangs, and bite the ground.Thus often Unbelief, grown sick of life,Flies to the tempting pool, or felon knife.The jury meet, the coroner is short,And lunacy the verdict of the court.Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known,Such lunacy is ignorance alone;They knew not, what some bishops may not know,That Scripture is the only cure of woe.That field of promise how it flings abroadIts odour o'er the Christian's thorny road!The soul, reposing on assured relief,Feels herself happy amidst all her grief,Forgets her labour as she toils along,Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song.But the same word, that, like the polish'd share,Ploughs up the roots of a believer's care,Kills too the flowery weeds, where'er they grow,That bind the sinner's Bacchanalian brow.Oh, that unwelcome voice of heavenly love,Sad messenger of mercy from above!How does it grate upon his thankless ear,Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear!His will and judgment at continual strife,That civil war embitters all his life;In vain he points his powers against the skies,In vain he closes or averts his eyes,Truth will intrude—she bids him yet beware;And shakes the sceptic in the scorner's chair.Though various foes against the Truth combine,Pride above all opposes her design;Pride, of a growth superior to the rest,The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest,Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage,Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage.And is the soul indeed so lost?—she cries,Fallen from her glory, and too weak to rise?Torpid and dull, beneath a frozen zone,Has she no spark that may be deem'd her own?Grant her indebted to what zealots callGrace undeserved, yet surely not for all!Some beams of rectitude she yet displays,Some love of virtue, and some power to praise;Can lift herself above corporeal things,And, soaring on her own unborrow'd wings,Possess herself of all that's good or true,Assert the skies, and vindicate her due.Past indiscretion is a venial crime;And if the youth, unmellowed yet by time,Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude,Fruits of a blighted size, austere and crude,Maturer years shall happier stores produce,And meliorate the well-concocted juice.Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal,To Justice she may make her bold appeal;And leave to Mercy, with a tranquil mind,The worthless and unfruitful of mankind.Hear then how Mercy, slighted and defied,Retorts the affront against the crown of pride.Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorr'd,And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.The atonement a Redeemer's love has wroughtIs not for you—the righteous need it not.Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets,The worn-out nuisance of the public streets,Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn?The gracious shower, unlimited and free,Shall fall on her, when Heaven denies it thee.Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift—That man is dead in sin, and life a gift.Is virtue, then, unless of Christian growth,Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe,For ignorance of what they could not know?—That speech betrays at once a bigot's tongue,Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong!Truly, not I—the partial light men have,My creed persuades me, well employ'd, may save;While he that scorns the noon-day beam, perverse,Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mindLeft sensuality and dross behind,Possess, for me, their undisputed lot,And take, unenvied, the reward they sought.But still in virtue of a Saviour's plea,Not blind by choice, but destined not to see.Their fortitude and wisdom were a flameCelestial, though they knew not whence it came,Derived from the same source of light and grace,That guides the Christian in his swifter race;Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law:That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,Led them, however faltering, faint, and slow,From what they knew to what they wish'd to know.But let not him that shares a brighter dayTraduce the splendour of a noontide ray,Prefer the twilight of a darker time,And deem his base stupidity no crime;The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies,And sinks, while favour'd with the means to rise,Shall find them rated at their full amount,The good he scorn'd all carried to account.Marshalling all his terrors as he came,Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring flame,From Sinai's top Jehovah gave the law—Life for obedience—death for every flaw.When the great Sovereign would his will express,He gives a perfect rule, what can he less?And guards it with a sanction as severeAs vengeance can inflict, or sinners fear:Else his own glorious rights he would disclaim,And man might safely trifle with his name.He bids him glow with unremitting loveTo all on earth, and to himself above;Condemns the injurious deed, the slanderous tongue,The thought that meditates a brother's wrong:Brings not alone the more conspicuous part,His conduct, to the test, but tries his heart.Hark! universal nature shook and groan'd,'Twas the last trumpet—see the Judge enthroned:Rouse all your courage at your utmost need,Now summon every virtue, stand and plead.What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more?That self-renouncing wisdom, learn'd before,Had shed immortal glories on your brow,That all your virtues cannot purchase now.All joy to the believer! He can speak—Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek.Since the dear hour that brought me to thy footAnd cut up all my follies by the root,I never trusted in an arm but thine,Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine:My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled,Were but the feeble efforts of a child;Howe'er performed, it was their brightest part,That they proceeded from a grateful heart:Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood,Forgive their evil and accept their good:I cast them at thy feet—my only pleaIs what it was, dependence upon thee:While struggling in the vale of tears below,That never fail'd, nor shall it fail me now.Angelic gratulations rend the skies,Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise,Humility is crown'd, and Faith receives the prize.

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