Fasting and prayer sit well upon a priest-
A decent caution and reserve, at least.
A soldier's best is courage in the field,
With nothing here that wants to be conceal'd:
Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay:
A hand as liberal as the light of day.
The soldier thus endow'd, who never shrinks,
Nor closets up his thought, whate'er he thinks,
Who scorns to do an injury by stealth,
Must go to heaven-and I must drink his health.
Sir Smug, he cries, (for lowest at the board-
Just made fifth chaplain of his patron lord,
His shoulders witnessing, by many a shrug,
How much his feelings suffer'd-sat Sir Smug)
Your office is to winnow false from true;
Come, prophet, drink, and tell us-What think you?
Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass,
Which they that woo preferment rarely pass,
Fallible man, the church-bred youth replies,
Is still found fallible, however wise;
And differing judgments serve but to declare
That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
Of all it ever was my lot to read,
Of critics now alive, or long since dead,
The book, of all the world, that charm'd me most,
Was-well-a-day, the title page was lost!
The writer well remarks, a heart that knows
To take with gratitude what Heaven bestows,
With prudence always ready at our call,
To guide our use of it, is all in all.
Doubtless it is.-To which, of my own store,
I superadd a few essentials more;
But these, excuse the liberty I take,
I wave just now, for conversation sake.-
Spoke like an oracle, they all exclaim,
And add Right Reverend to Smug's honour'd name↓
And yet our lot is given us in a land
Where busy arts are never at a stand;
Where science points her telescopic eye,
Familiar with the wonders of the sky;
Where bold inquiry, diving out of sight,
Brings many a precious pearl of truth to light;
Where naught eludes the persevering quest,
That fashion, taste, or luxury, suggest.
But, above all, in her own light array'd, See mercy's grand Apocalypse display'd! The sacred book no longer suffers wrong, Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue; But speaks with plainness, art could never mend, What simplest minds can soonest comprehend. God gives the word-the preachers throng around, Live from his lips, and spread the glorious sound; That sound bespeaks salvation on her way, The trumpet of a life-restoring day !
'Tis heard where England's eastern glory shines, And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines,
And still it spreads. See Germany send fort
Her sons* to pour it on the farthest north;
Fir'd with a zeal peculiar, they defy
The rage and rigour of a polar sky,
And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose
On icy plains, and in eternal snows.
Oh, blest within th' enclosure of your rocks,
Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks?
No fertilizing streams your fields divide,
That show, revers'd, the villas on their side;
No groves
have ye; no cheerful sound of bird,
Or voice of turtle, in your land is heard;
Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell
Of those that walk at evening where ye
But winter, arm'd with terrors here unknown,
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne;
Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste,
And bids the mountains he has built stand fast
Beckons the legions of his storms away
From happier scenes, to make your land a prey;
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won,
And scorns to share it with the distant sun.
-Yet truth is yours, remote, unenvied isle!
And peace, the genuine offspring of her smile!
The pride of letter'd ignorance, that binds
In chains of error our accomplish'd minds,
That decks, with all the splendour of the true,
A false religion, is unknown to you.
The Moravian Missionaries in Greenland. Vide Krantz,
Nature, indeed, vouchsafes, for our delight,
The sweet vicissitudes of day and night;
Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer
Field, fruit, and flower, and every creature here;
But brighter beams, than his who fires the skies,
Have risen at length on your admiring eyes,
That shoot into your darkest caves the day,
From which our nicer optics turn away.
Here see th' encouragement grace gives to vice,
The dire effect of mercy without price!
What were they? What some fools are made by art,
They were by nature-atheists, head and heart.
The gross idolatry blind heathens teach
Was too refin'd for them, beyond their reach.
Not e'en the glorious sun-though men revere
The monarch most, that seldom will appear;
And though his beams, that quicken where they shine,
May claim some right to be esteem'd divine—
Not e'en the sun, desirable as rare,
Could bend one knee, engage one votary there!
They were, what base credulity believes
True Christians are, dissemblers, drunkards, thieves.
The full-gorg'd savage, at his nauseous feast
Spent half the darkness, and snor'd out the res,
Was one whom justice, on an equal plan,
Denouncing death upon the sins of man,
Might almost have indulg'd with an escape,
Chargeable only with a human shape.
What are they now?-Morality may spare
Her grave concern, her kind suspicions, there
The wretch, who once sang wildly, danc'd and laugh'd,
And suck'd in dizzy madness with his draught,
Has wept a silent flood, revers'd his ways,
Is sober, meek, benevolent, and prays;
Feeds sparingly, communicates his store,
Abhors the craft he boasted of before-
And he that stole, has learnt to steal no more.
Well spake the prophet, Let the desert sing,
Where sprang the thorn the spiry fir shall spring,
And where unsightly and rank thistles grew,
the mirtle and luxuriant yew.
Go now, and with important tone demand
On what foundation virtue is to stand,
If self-exalting claims be turn'd adrift,
And grace be grace indeed, and life a gift.
The poor reclaim'd inhabitant, his eyes
Glistening at once with pity and surprise,
Amaz'd that shadows should obscure the sight
Of one whose birth was in a land of light,
Shall answer, Hope, sweet hope, has set me free,
And made all pleasures else mere dross to me.
These, amidst scenes as waste as if denied
The common care that waits on all beside,
Wild as if nature there, void of all good,
Play'd only gambols in a frantic mood,
(Yet charge not heavenly skill with having plann'd
A play-thing world, unworthy of his hand!)
Can see his love, though secret evil lurks
In all we touch, stamp'd plainly on his works;
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