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.
de pansing wind.
England? What appears
are the muse to tears!
be lureel wish'd his eyes
chute supplies:
ley and wrong;
and the slander's tongue;
Wings or souvenient tools,
ures, or fashion fools;
laighbour's door;
and to grind the poor;
ad deceitful weight;
mask for secret bate
maity in pray'r
of the lip were there.
ent and self-caress'd,
wed finger dress'dy
Cut virgin fears impart
ks, and horrow'd one from art;
ties, without worth or use,
end ideas produce
ad, fubelow, and found'd around,
dinate to touch the ground.
the neck, and roll'd the wanton eye
Wierty fool that Batter'd by.
le slaves to ev'ry bust,
rogant, unjust;
They scorn'd his inspiration and his theme,
Pronounc'd him frantic, and his fears a dream;
With self-indulgence wing'd the fleeting hours,
Till the foe found them, and down fell the tow'rs.
Long time Assyria bound them in her chain,
Till penitence had purg'd the public stain,
And Cyrus, with relenting pity mov'd,
Return'd them happy to the land they lov'd;
There, proof against prosperity, awhile
They stood the test of her ensnaring smile,
And had the grace in scenes of peace to show
The virtue, they had learn'd in scenes of wo.
But man is frail, and can but ill sustain
A long immunity from grief and pain;
And after all the joys that Plenty leads,
With tiptoe step Vice silently succeeds.
When he that rul'd them with a shepherd's rod, In form a man, in dignity a God,
Came, not expected in that humble guise,
To sift and search them with unerring eyes,
He found, conceal'd beneath a fair outside,
The filth of rottenness, and worm of pride;
Their piety a system of deceit,
Scripture employ'd to sanctify the cheat;
The pharisee the dupe of his own art,
Self-idoliz'd, and yet a knave at heart.
When nations are to perish in their sins,
'Tis in the church the leprosy begins;
The priest, whose office is with zeal sincere
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poison what the flock must drink;
Or, waking at the call of lust alone,
Infuses lies and errours of his own;
His unsuspecting sheep believe it
And, tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul fore-runner of a gen'ral rot.
Then Truth is hush'd, that Heresy may preach;
And all is trash, that Reason cannot reach:
Then God's own image on the soul impress'd
Becomes a mock'ry, and a standing jest ;
And faith, the root whence only can arise
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Loses at once all value and esteem,
Pronounc'd by graybeards a pernicious dream':
Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend':
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;
Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.
Such, when the Teacher of his church was there,
People and priest, the sons of Israel were;
Stiff in the letter, lax in the design
And import, of their oracles divine;
Their learning legendary, false, absurd,
And yet exalted above God's own word;
They drew a curse from an intended good,
Puff'd up with gifts they never understood.'
He judg'd them with as terrible a frown, '
As if not love, but wrath, had brought him down?'
Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs,
Had grace for others' sins, but none for theirs;
Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran--
Rhet'ric is artifice, the work of man;
And tricks and turns, that fancy may 'devise,'
Are far too mean for him, that rules the skies.
Th' astonish'd vulgar trembled while he tore
The mask from faces never seen before';
He stripp'd th' impostors in the noonday sun,
Show'd that they follow'd all they seem'd to shah;
Their pray'rs made public, their excesses kept
As private as the chambers where they slept;
The temple and it's holy rites profan'd
By mumin'ries, he that dwelt in it disdaiti'd;'
Uplifted hands, that at convenient times **
Could act extortion and the worst of crimes,”
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