When sent with God's commission to the heart.
So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip Or merry turn in all he ever wrote, And I consent you take it for your text, Your only one, till sides and benches fail. No: he was serious in a serious cause, And understood too well the weighty terms
That he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoop To conquer those by jocular exploits, Whom truth and soberness assail'd in vain.
Oh, popular applause 21! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales; But swell'd into a gust,-who then, alas! With all his canvass set, and inexpert
And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power?
Praise from the rivel'd lips of toothless, bald Decrepitude; and in the looks of lean And craving poverty; and in the bow Respectful of the smutch'd artificer 22 Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb The bias of the purpose. How much more Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite, In language soft as adoration breathes? Ah spare your idol! think him human still;
21 The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art, Reigns more or less, and glows, in every heart; The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure, The modest shun it but to make it sure.
22 Another lean unwashed artificer.
Young. Satire i. King John.
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too; Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.
All truth is from the sempiternal source Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome Drew from the stream below. More favour'd we Drink, when we chuse it, at the fountain head. To them it flow'd much mingled and defiled With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams Illusive of philosophy, so call'd,
But falsely. Sages after sages strove
In vain, to filter off a chrystal draught
Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred Intoxication and delirium wild.
In vain they push'd enquiry to the birth
And spring-time of the world, asked, whence is man? Why form'd at all? And wherefore as he is?
Where must he find his Maker? With what rites
Adore him? Will He hear, accept, and bless? Or does he sit regardless of his works? Has man within him an immortal seed? Or does the tomb take all? If he survive His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe? Knots worthy of solution, which alone
A Deity could solve. Their answers vague And all at random, fabulous and dark,
Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life Defective and unsanction'd, proved too weak
To bind the roving appetite, and lead Blind Nature to a God not yet reveal'd. 'Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, Explains all mysteries except her own,
And so illuminates the path of life That fools discover it, and stray no more. Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir, My man of morals, nurtured in the shades Of Academus, is this false or true? Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools? If Christ, then why resort at every turn To Athens or to Rome for wisdom short Of man's occasions, when in Him reside Grace, knowledge, comfort, an unfathom'd store? How oft when Paul has served us with a text, Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully preach'd!
Men that, if now alive, would sit content
And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,
Preach it who might 23. Such was their love of truth, Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too. And thus it is. The pastor, either vain By nature, or by flattery made so, taught To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt Absurdly, not his office, but himself; Or unenlighten'd, and too proud to learn, Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach, Perverting often by the stress of lewd And loose example, whom he should instruct, Exposes and holds up to broad disgrace The noblest function, and discredits much The brightest truths that man has ever seen. For ghostly counsel, if it either fall Below the exigence, or be not back'd
23 Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent Would have been held in high esteem with Paul.
With show of love, at least with hopeful proof Of some sincerity on the giver's part;
Or be dishonour'd in the exterior form And mode of its conveyance, by such tricks As move derision, or by foppish airs And histrionic mummery, that let down The pulpit to the level of the stage,
Drops from the lips a disregarded thing 2.
The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught, While prejudice in men of stronger minds Takes deeper root, confirm'd by what they see. A relaxation of religion's hold
Upon the roving and untutor'd heart
Soon follows, and the curb of conscience snapt, The laity run wild.—But do they now? Note their extravagance, and be convinced. As nations ignorant of God, contrive A wooden one, so we, no longer taught By monitors that mother church supplies, Now make our own. Posterity will ask (If e'er posterity see verse of mine,) Some fifty or an hundred lustrums hence, What was a monitor in George's days? My very gentle reader, yet unborn,
Of whom I needs must augur better things, Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a world Productive only of a race like us,
A monitor is wood. Plank shaven thin.
We wear it at our backs. There closely braced And neatly fitted, it compresses hard
24 Flaunts and goes down an unregarded thing.
Pope. Moral Essays, ii. 252.
The prominent and most unsightly bones, And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use Sovereign and most effectual to secure
A form not now gymnastic as of yore,
From rickets and distortion, else, our lot.
But thus admonish'd we can walk erect,
One proof at least of manhood; while the friend
Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.
Our habits costlier than Lucullus wore, And by caprice as multiplied as his,
Just please us while the fashion is at full, But change with every moon. The sycophant
That waits to dress us, arbitrates their date, Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye; Finds one ill made, another obsolete, This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived, And making prize of all that he condemns, With our expenditure defrays his own. Variety's the very spice of life
That gives it all its flavour. We have run Through every change that fancy at the loom Exhausted, has had genius to supply,
And studious of mutation still, discard A real elegance a little used
For monstrous novelty and strange disguise. We sacrifice to dress, till household joys
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean. Puts out our fires, And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign. What man that lives and that knows how to live, Would fail to exhibit at the public shows
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